Those are some good counters.
I can only speak for myself, but I have high hopes for steam machine. I intend to replace my shield, xbox, apple tv, and current/future desktops with a SM, and while those other options might be cheaper and compelling, they won’t be a steam machine.
There has actually been a resurgence of HTPC locally.
People in our various user groups are dropping streaming subs and consolidating their computers and media viewing into one machine with personal media. The second hand market for laptops and ex business desktop servers has grown as people revise their home budgets.
We have too many devices ourselves, ATV’s, streaming boxes, couple of cable boxes, a few CC’s and even a Firestick. We have dropped three streaming services and using our HTPC much more.
It has been the main server for personal family videos that we serve out to family and friends across the world.
Our HTPC is our only household computer now so it has multiple duties. The consolidation was all about cost and simplification. Many may argue against that approach but it works for us. It runs our home automation (lights, AC, blinds etc) and I’m spending more and more time on it adding new functions. I seriously considered moving away from HTPC a few years ago but it is being revived.
My wife has had plenty of options for media viewing but keeps coming back to Plex HTPC. She said she likes how the HTPC is a one stop shop and Plex HTPC just works so well.
The desktop apps are certainly not dead.
edit - I looked at the SM. I’ve heard of it before but the specs were so weak I moved on. After it being mentioned above I went back and checked it out. It hasn’t changed. I’m sure the Steam community will love it but it just doesn’t cut it for HT.
Fair enough. I’m still interested to see what kind of ecosystem the steam machine can offer especially if it can do proper HDR + full passthrough and not have any codec issues. But after the Xbox Series X/S I am more inclined to believe dedicated players designed for home theatre use are the way forward instead of the HTPC or “all in one” solutions. Xbox had so much promise and was so close but failed to really deliver as a sort of “all in one” box with audio/video glitches and many playback issues. Issues you just don’t get with a Ugoos AM6B+, ATV4K w/Infuse etc. Maybe the Steam Machine will be much better in that regard. But consoles are generally unreliable with Plex in my experience.
That would be terrible, if for no other reason than the steam machine is not a streaming device in any sense of the reasons people use streaming devices.
If I wanted to run a full-blown PC as my living room streaming device I can do it for much less and in a smaller physical footprint than a steam machine.
Well, this discussion is about DESKTOP APPS, which by definition is a full blown pc and subject to the pros and cons of such.
You’re the one who brought it up. HTPCs have been around for a long time, and the comparison ignores the limitations that actually led to the development of OTT device products.
Saying the steam machine will be the new Shield is like saying you feel the 2027 BMW X5 will be the new Harley-Davidson. 
My hope is that we might see a functionality update at some point, Plex for Mac has been on minimal fix life support since the last remotely meaningful updates (I’m using very kind words here, reality is these updates were minimal) in May-June 2024. And absolutely no updates since December 2025, and prior to this 7 months before. So I’m afraid to have to largely agree with the core message of this post given our experience and lack of any other information.
I’d also hope that Plex might understand that so many people have moved to other solutions whilst waiting for updates, so allowing product roadmap direction from just current application usage isn’t giving Plex the right signals to help with priority. I’m sure that many value Desktop playback just as highly as mobile, I certainly do.
Commonly reported issues that many of us experience when we try to use the current Plex for Mac, that have forced many to give up include:
In its current state I use the app only for watching Live TV, and Infuse for everything else.
And whilst I’d rather not see the Mac app (and others) "simplified with the New Experience, I can’t help but suspect that the legacy C++ / Qt code base with all of it’s tech/dev debt is beyond renovating at this point (however possible given I believe it’s similar across Windows, Mac and Linux).
The question that I’m left pondering, is it better to keep the desktop app limping along with the broader feature set that is barely usable for many users, or focus it on doing it’s core job properly, Media playback (and yes I know I’d be complaining about either decision, it’s not easy).
I just want to throw in my two cents to stan for the desktop apps, even if it makes no difference. I came here while going down the rabbithole investigating the deprecated runtime used in the latest Linux Flatpak.
There’s a valid argument to be made that the desktop apps could, in an ideal world, be retired thanks to the growing popularity of Progressive Web Apps. Instead of maintaining an entire app, the web interface could simply be installed as a Chrome or Firefox PWA and run through the browser’s engine. The problem is that there’s seemingly no progress in STABLE codec support from actual web browser devs. Someone in this thread touched on that, but just adding codecs to the browser isn’t the only problem.
I have a dual boot setup with both Windows 11 and Linux Mint. On both systems it’s now possible to add native HEVC support to Firefox in different ways. I’ve been using it this way for around a year now. If I skip through several videos on Plex in a row (particularly my music video library), playback in Firefox will break completely until I restart the browser. When this happens I’ve noticed my swap space fills up completely. This is a big headache if I have multiple browser tabs or windows open to work in at the same time. Even though Windows and Linux have their own way of using swap, the same behavior happens on both. The consistent swap behavior leads me to believe there’s some kind of memory leak issue. It could be related to the HEVC/H265 codec itself (used by my entire library), but this problem doesn’t happen in the Plex desktop apps.
One would expect you might fix this by switching browsers, but Chrome seems to have exactly the same problem. It also doesn’t seem to be specific to Plex either, as my Jellyfin instance seems to do exactly the same thing in browsers. It’s really telling that this happens on two completely separate operating systems consistently, so it would seem strange to be tied to my specific computer.
Here’s where we have a triage problem. Self-hosted media servers are probably the primary way anyone will ever need direct codec support in their browsers. Most public-facing websites have robust server-side handling for video playback to flexibly transcode for any client. Very little attention seems to be paid to fixing direct codec implementation in web browsers for this reason. Firefox update after update, I never see this problem fixed or improved. Plex transcoding is an awesome option when it works, but it’s resource-intensive. Ideally the most stable way for a client to play should be direct if you have the bandwidth to support it. The majority of web browser users don’t have an urgent need for that browser feature to be stringently maintained, so it’s anyone’s guess if we’ll ever see the browser side improve.
These codec and memory problems don’t exist in the Plex desktop apps in my experience. Until web browsers fix whatever it is that causes these direct play stability issues, the desktop apps are a load-bearing structure for a stable experience on desktop. If Chrome/Firefox and their downstream variants ever fix these problems, by all means fall back to encouraging users to use PWAs. Chrome has good PWA implementation, and Firefox recently added it natively as well. Until then, I hope Plex devs see this and my appreciation for the reliability of the desktop apps. Please don’t consider retiring them before desktop users have a 1:1 stable alternative. My PC is still how I watch Plex 99% of the time.
I know the app continues to function even if development stops, but that doesn’t mean it won’t stop working eventually as PMS evolves.
Some issues have been reported for more than a year, and no fix planned this far…
i.e : Mac Player stuttering video playback
I think the devs have no time to waste on apps… unfortunatly…
@guillaumeperes It’s been the issue since upgrading from v1.47, square box’s radomly appearing, glitchy and the issue never got fixed with each upgrade? or at the present time regression! Plex Employee’s have said there are plans to upgrade the players, but nothing has happened!
@ChuckPa has had to put up with a lot of us complaining, and he deserves a medal, especially as he keeps getting told the same old story, “it’s in the pile to be done”
Thankfully my family who I share my server with, all use other players, Android, Roku, Samsung etc. so it doesn’t affect them, but for those who like to use the Player on the PC. it’s either put up with the “old” code or use Plex through the web browser, which works, but likes to transcode certain codecs, which becomes a nightmare when you don’t have the hardware to deal with that!
So. who can we moan to besides rhose that help out on the Forums? there’s got to be a way of getting through to them?
Dave
Install Kodi 21+ on your Linux client system. Install the PM4K add-on.
I’m sure that Plex will sort this out in the end, but that’s your best option for the time being. As long as you don’t need live TV.
Did you try the environment variable trick to change the rendering setting?
Also, if this isn’t an immutable distro you could use Plezy as well.
Lol
Best way to watch content with Plex? Not using Plex apps…
This is a joke…
But thank you for this app!
… for folks who are experiencing issues on the Linux Plex clients. This is by no means everyone. The other options presented are potential alternatives.
I mean, if the choice is using a third-party client or having 90% of my content transcoding because the web client can direct-play so little, I know what I will be doing.
I must admit that I have some mixed feelings about Plezy after trying it out for the last couple of months. On the one hand it’s pretty decent and it’s getting better at a pretty good clip. On the other hand, if the app is too good by the time that Plex gets around to considering the next generation desktop app, they may decided to spend the resources elsewhere in light of the presence of a good third-party app.
In many ways, Plezy is better than the latest apps that Plex has rewritten in the new architecture. Things like downloads that actually syncs play progress or automatically grabbing everything in a playlist and updating when that playlist updates that we took for granted in the previous generation of apps. I can only imagine where it’ll be over the next few months.
Perhaps this is a good thing in the long run as there is a real chance that Plezy can be better than what we might get from Plex.
