In an effort to bring some sanity to this discussion which has gone way out of control, I’ll try to summarize the intent of the two apps, Plex for Mac/Windows/Linux (sometimes called Desktop for brevity) and Plex HTPC.
First both apps use MPV for the playback engine. We wouldn’t entertain the disservice of putting out an app with the poor media stack you find in electron apps and dare to expect users to accept it as an application for the desktop. While the UI in both apps is rendered using a web interface, it is done through Chromium which is running inside the Qt framework.
Second, and related to the first, the two apps are very similar. In fact, they are built from the same codebase. Some features are enabled in one and disabled in the other but this is primarily in support of the difference in the UI. These UIs do come from different codebases and are very different in design and intent.
The Desktop app is intended to be used by the user sitting in front of a computer. It has the same look and feel as Plex Web because that’s where the UI comes from. It has several additions which are not present in the generic Plex Web such as the aforementioned audio/video preferences. The biggest addition by far is the support for downloading media for offline playback.
HTPC is intended to be used as a 10 foot interface (you sit 10 feet away from the TV). It uses the UI from TV apps (the apps that run in several smart TVs). The nature of this intent requires that text sizes be bigger (so it can be read/used from a distance) and by extension the UI be simpler. While it does have some minimal mouse support, it is never intended to be driven by a mouse but instead by the basic up/down/left/right/enter/back command-set.
To put it simply:
If you wish to drive the app via a mouse and keyboard and you sit close enough to the TV to be able to read potentially small text, then the Desktop app is the more appropriate for you.
If you wish to drive the app via a remote or other device with a similarly smaller command set, then the HTPC app is more appropriate for you.
