4 reasons Plex is turning into the thing it replaced

Plex used to be the de facto media server tool to set up your own Netflix alternative, whether on a network storage device or an old laptop lying around. It has one of the most compelling use cases — you simply save your movies and TV shows in a folder, map it to Plex Media Server, and it automatically organizes and indexes everything, downloads appropriate thumbnails, and populates the metadata.

The tool has been the default for so long that it has become a habit. But I now feel that it’s time to break that habit for good. Plex has been imposing so many restrictions on its users that everyone should start looking for alternatives.

Plex may have only now added restrictions around remote streaming, but it has been bringing constraints across several features for a while now. Remote access wasn’t a smooth experience anyway, and it’s honestly only getting frustrating. If Plex fails to get a direct connection, it falls back to relay mode, where Plex’s cloud is involved, butchering video quality no matter the bitrate of the original file — for some, it even fell back to relay mode on the local network.

You expect Plex to be a self-hosted service with zero licensing restrictions, unlike Netflix, but that’s not remotely true. Some trailers and artwork aren’t available outside the US, even for content you legally own. This feels like an artificial restriction that doesn’t sit well with the very idea of Plex.

When you come across these restrictions every other day, it takes away your sense of ownership — the very thing you want from your own network storage — and leaves you at the mercy of the platform. And I’m not ready to stay with that feeling anymore.

Plex was supposed to be a media server that let me stream my own content on the local network, but nope, that wasn’t enough. It didn’t just want to be a Netflix replacement; it wanted to be Netflix.

The moment you open Plex, you’re bombarded with options that have little to do with your own media and more with what Plex wants you to watch and the way it wants you to. The home page is stuffed with its own music streaming service, a free movie and TV series service riddled with ads, a cross-platform watchlist manager, and more. It has gone from a simple media server to a hybrid app that nobody asked for.

Sure, you can disable a lot of features from the home page, but even the remaining bits push you toward Plex’s ecosystem with things like recommendations. And I’ve even seen people complaining about needing to re-disable promotional content after updates. It’s simply a shady business.

The very idea of hosting your own services is to gain freedom from monthly subscriptions. However, Plex thought it was a good idea to restrict a bunch of features and put them behind a paywall. Plex Pass may be nice to have, but the company is artificially making it a necessity with arbitrary restrictions.

Features like mobile streaming are essential to a media server, but you have to pay $7 a month — up from $5 earlier — even if you’re on the local network. If remote access is a must, you again need the subscription. And this extends to other important features like Skip Intro, DVR, hardware transcoding, and others that are critical for power users — you know, the very kind who run NAS servers at home.

The problem is less about Plex locking premium features behind a paywall and more about it making earlier free features paid, bit by bit; recent changes to remote playback are an example. There’s a difference between paying for convenience and paying to remove irritating restrictions. The latter feels like arm-twisting.

A lot of Plex’s alternatives don’t come with an interface as polished, but at least they don’t put roadblocks in your way to make you pay.

Jellyfin is a darling among enthusiasts for its smooth app interface across platforms, relatively faster indexing, and, most importantly, an interface that puts your own library first. Emby is another alternative — also with a paid tier, albeit a bit generous — that sits between Jellyfin and Plex, with an interface more polished than Jellyfin and less controlling than Plex.

Both bring back the ownership aspect that Plex seems to be giving up on, ensure better privacy of your data, and don’t squeeze you for money or push you for additional services you don’t even need.

And if you’re already using Plex, you aren’t locked in. You can easily map your existing media folder to one of these alternatives or even migrate your existing metadata, posters, and more with minimal friction. If you can spare a weekend, you should consider switching, because I know I would.

Plex was one of the first things I loaded onto my Synology back in the day, and it was an enjoyable experience both to set up and to run. However, a lot has changed since then. Its interface now appears so bloated that you have to literally look for what you want to find. And when you move around the interface, you hit a paywall so hard that you stumble to stay afoot. That’s the kind of frustration I wanted to avoid when I put together my own server, and for me, it’s now time to jump to an alternative sooner rather than later.