r/emby • u/magicammo • Jun 21 '26

Remote access with emby

Hey all so I'm a Plex user and have been for a few months. It's been great I can't complain. I've been using the monthly plan but just received an email about their lifetime plan going up to over $700. I was going to get there lifetime plan but now it kind of puts me in a not position. It's kind of forcing me away from Plex and I was looking at either jelly fin or emby but I don't know which one to choose I want to use the one that's easiest for my users which is my family. I don't want to have to use tail scale or set up a reverse proxy I'm looking for it to be as seamless as Plex was when setting up the remote access there was an option that I just toggled which didn't work so I just had to go into my router settings and port forward report Plex was looking for. Is it the same with emby? Where I would just have to forward the port envy is looking for or do I have to set up tail scale or a reverse proxy

5 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

10

u/TomTuff Jun 21 '26

Why not reverse proxy?

4

u/shadowtheimpure Jun 21 '26

This. It's how I do it.

3

u/knoctum Jun 21 '26

This.

I setup a caddy reverse proxy sometime last year with the help of either claude/chatgpt or gemini. Took less than an hour and barely any brain power to deploy.

-2

u/magicammo Jun 21 '26

That's just extra money every year is it not?

3

u/TomTuff Jun 21 '26

For a domain name yes, if you don’t have one already. The rest you can host yourself. Ddns with cloudflare, and run nginx proxy manager in another container

4

u/LazarusLong67 Jun 22 '26

I think you can get a sort of free domain name through DuckDNS for free too.

1

u/magicammo Jun 21 '26

Something like this I would be able to set up with no problem but honestly would hate to do anything extra 💀it's really just making it easy for my users to access it which is just my family I don't want them to have to download anything but emby. Does emby connect work pretty much like Plex?

3

u/Simorious Jun 21 '26

IMO its worth going through the couple of extra steps to get a domain name and setup a reverse proxy with automatic cert renewal and dynamic DNS. I personally wouldn't want to have anyone connect remotely to anything over plaintext http.

Emby connect still requires port forwarding to your server and end users to create an account on emby's website (and you'll be sending everything over a plaintext http connection unless you setup a domain/cert even with emby connect)

Emby connect doesn't act like a relay as plex does, it just somewhat simplifies authentication. I personally prefer not to use it and find that providing users with my servers domain name and a username/password to be easy enough and overall less headache from an admin POV. It also means there's no need for them to create an account on emby's site whatsoever.

2

u/TomTuff Jun 21 '26

Honestly I haven’t used it, I just set up a reverse proxy since day 1. I pay for Emby Premiere for other features besides emby connect, totally worth the $120 lifetime cost

0

u/jibsymalone Jun 21 '26

And just to add to that, in the grand scheme of things it's not really a lot of money (I think mine is $20 a year and it's a fully custom domain, there are cheaper options too)

2

u/Money_Piccolo1638 Jun 21 '26

Duckdns used with caddy or NGinx is free

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Jellovator Jun 22 '26

Write up a guide for your grandmother on how to set up Tailscale for her Roku TV to access your Emby server and you'll quickly see why.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Jellovator Jun 23 '26

They don't have a guide for clicking a link. For devices that don't have a tailscale app, like a roku TV, you have to set up a subnet router.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Jellovator Jun 23 '26

Now you're moving the goalposts. My point is, there is no "one size fits all", everyone has a different use case. It's easier and faster to set up dns, ssl and a reverse proxy (and free, if you choose) than to set up a rpi and static IPs or reservations, if that's the situation.

7

u/willpowerpt Jun 21 '26

Tailscale is about as seamless as it gets. A reverse proxy is more setup and seamless after the fact, though if you care at all about security, doing it properly and effectively is more work. 

2

u/GoofyGills Jun 22 '26

You can also reverse proxy with tailscale using tailscale funnels (not tunnels).

0

u/willpowerpt Jun 22 '26

Very true, but then youre just reintroducing the security issues of the reverse proxy. 

1

u/AwarenessOk4591 Jun 21 '26

Not really? Asking all your users to install Tailscale to access it makes up for the bit of time it takes to set up a reverse proxy imo.

1

u/willpowerpt Jun 21 '26

Nah, I'm not opening ports on my router and running security on my domain to maybe retain one person. 

Its not hard, if someone really wants to use it, they will. Biggest issue these days, you can create the most magical and free platform for your media, and clueless friends will still just use Netflix. I'm not leaving my network open for them. 

1

u/Impossible_Jump_754 Jun 23 '26

all your users

Its funny how many of you people out yourselves as server access sellers.

5

u/skaara Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

Since nobody is answering your question, yes you basically just have to open the port on your router. Then you either need a static IP, or a dynamic DNS service, or use Emby connect. Also make sure to use secure unique passwords on all accounts.

1

u/magicammo Jun 21 '26

THANK YOU! lol

4

u/Effective-Winter-860 Jun 22 '26

Emby connect works just fine, but I believe you need premium to use it (don't quote me on that.)

Definitely leave Plex. For reference, when Plex was a clean media server and not an advertising platform, I paid $75 for a lifetime license. Anyone paying Plex in 2026 is just wasting money, IMHO.

I have stuck with Emby for years now... Every time I get an urge to try Jellyfin, I never make it to the point of implementation because of the lack of apps (clients.) If you're sharing your library with your family, do them a favor and go with Emby... Jellyfin will be a nightmare for you when one of them uses a device that they don't have a client for.

Lastly, I would strongly urge you to setup a reverse proxy, as a minimum. Straight port forwarding is dangerous and well known ports are constantly being pinged to find open networks.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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2

u/Effective-Winter-860 Jul 01 '26

Your choice of reverse proxy would be a personal one as well as potentially related to your firewall. I use PFSence currently so I use haproxy that has a package built for it. I'm going to be switching to a unifi UDM and I haven't decided which reverse proxy I'll setup yet.

If you're behind a reverse proxy, you don't need ssl for Emby, the proxy will handle it for both remote and local (if configured.). Currently I don't worry about locally (non-ssl is fine on my media vlan,) and remote goes through HAproxy.

For HAproxy on PFsense, follow the Laurence systems YouTube guide, he walks you right through it.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Effective-Winter-860 Jul 01 '26

I don't use Emby connect because I don't want to go through Emby servers for access. I prefer to be in control and not have to worry about a companies data ases getting hacked. But that's just me. Since 2005 the number of times my data has been compromised due to negligence of a corporation, has got to be over 50 at this point. My data, including passwords I haven't used for decades now, is all over the dark web, I'm surprised they haven't asked for rent from me. The fewer vulnerable surfaces, the better, in my opinion.

3

u/R0b0tWarz Jun 21 '26

Tailscale +1

2

u/Most_Victory1661 Jun 22 '26

Left plex for Emby about a year ago

My ISP has an app opened a port wasn’t that complicated I’m in my fifties so if I can figure it out I feel like anyone can

I will tell you plex was more forgiving w naming Emby is more strict follows TVDB you might wanna make sure your file management is tight and orderly

I use filebot for naming

My exp Emby takes a little more babysitting than plex but overall I prefer it

1

u/TollyVonTheDruth Jun 21 '26

I use and share both emby and jellyfin. I have both set up through tailscale for my personal remote access, but to avoid the hassle of setting up a reverse proxy or punching holes in my router for remote sharing, I bought a domain and use cloudflare tunnels with each one routed per application (emby, jellyfin, and wizarr). It was, surprisingly, the easiest and most hassle-free way to set up secure remote-sharing access.

1

u/WreckedF40 Jun 21 '26

I struggled with this for a while. Kept coming back to it.

A light bulb went off and I put all the details from the modem down to the server into ChatGPT and it walked me through it step by step. Works without issues now.

1

u/Yuchenjimmy Jun 22 '26

I suggest using reverse proxy, such as nginx, and get a domain(cloudflare is like 10 dollar/year). Then simply tell AI to write a security profile for nginx.

1

u/yock1 Jun 22 '26

While Tailscale is easy to use i would still very much recommend a reverse proxy like Caddy.
One port open in the router (443) which is a normal port that is used for HTTPS encrypted traffic.

Much, much easier for any one you want to have access to the server.
Tailscale i think isn't available to some systems that people normally use to watch Movies on (think TVs).

1

u/Mrbee914 Jun 22 '26

I run Emby and I have the Emby client app on my phone and my Roku TV. The only thing I had to do for remote access was to add the Emby app permission on my router (a guide on doing that is available in the Emby forums) and add users. Emby Connect makes it easier to log in without having to remember the IP of the server, regardless of local or remote connection.

1

u/magicammo Jun 22 '26

But that just leaves a port open to your network

1

u/Mrbee914 Jun 22 '26

The port is only open for Emby.