Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April

www.plex.tv

Important 2025 Plex Updates

Ahoy mateys, it's time to setup Jellyfin if you prefer not to pay for the privilege of self-hosting your own content.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/27204525

We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

167 comments

does this mean the server will need Plex pass or each user individually?
Edit:
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CURRENT PLEX PASS HOLDERS: For users who have an active Plex Pass subscription, remote playback will continue to be available to you without interruption from any Plex Media Server, after these changes go into effect. When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge—not even a mobile activation fee. More on that later in this update.
- I guess the whole idea of this move is to force self-hosters to pay for a Plex pass. But it's a funny demographic to try to strongarm into a subscription. Most tech savvy self-hosters won't think twice about spinning up a Jellyfin instance instead, especially given that it's FOSS. And for those folks with a lifetime Plex pass this makes no difference.,
  
  Yeah but anyone who is seriously using Plex already paid for one so I don't get the outrage
  
  Dito. The price increase for lifetime is hard and surely made so to push people into the recurring instead. But as a Plex Pass holder this won't drive me to Jellyfin
  
  You should however give jellyfin a shot as it has a bunch of cool features and is way more extensible than Plex.
  Plex is still more polished but ive found there are a bunch of plugins for jellyfin that are really cool
  
  I have a Jellyfin instance running in parallel to check out its progress, but its just not there yet for me.
  What do you mean with extensible? The plugin 'shop'?
  
  https://github.com/awesome-jellyfin/awesome-jellyfin
  I really like the intro detector edl creator, tube archivist metadata provider, subtitle extract, and playback reporting plugins
  Also you can customize the CSS for your server that extends to all clients using the jf webapp. Plex will never have that
  
  Lol, that Jellyfin needs a 3rd party plugin for intro detection says a lot about the maturity of the project. Also, there are other Frontends for plex
  
  Self hosters do it to absorb the burden and avoid playing subscriptions. I don't pay for Netflix because I don't want to have the monthly fee (among other things), I host Plex myself and deal with all the server and library maintenance. If I have to pay a subscription to self host it's a step backwards lol.
  I bought the lifetime back in 2013 so I have no complaints, but the month to month is a rip off.
- I found this elsewhere and it seems to clear up the issue, for me at least:
  The new “Remote Watch Pass” is primarily for users who stream from servers owned by individuals without a Plex Pass. For example, if your friend runs a Plex server but doesn’t subscribe to Plex Pass, their remote users will need a Remote Watch Pass to continue streaming after the changes take effect. Because you have a Plex Pass, your remote users will continue to be able to stream from your server remotely without needing to purchase the remote access pass.
  
  And just found this from the FAQ on the announcement page:
  I do not have a Plex Pass, but stream remotely from a Plex Media Server:
  To stream remotely starting on April 29, 2025, you will need a Remote Watch Pass or Plex Pass subscription on your account or the admin of the Plex Media Server from which you stream will need a Plex Pass subscription on their account.

167 comments