Long time since I asked… What’s your current personal use case of Plex vs Emby? I know you had stated using Emby more 1-2 years ago and came back eventually…
While you wait for Cayars reasons here’s mine, as I’m in pretty much same situation as him.
I have actually had an Emby lifetime for around 2 years but always drifted back to Plex.
Why back and forth?
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Tautulli
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Tautulli
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Tautulli
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Server-side Emby just wasn’t the best experience for me. Maybe just because it was different. Client-side I always preferred Emby.
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While the whole Emby experience has improved at least 50% in the last 6 months, the Plex experience has deteriorated far more than that. I actually prefer the server side of Emby now. Again this may be because I have become more accustomed to the Emby server UI.
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I have serious issues with things being thrust on us. News, podcasts and the latest online garbage. Podcasts can be done in Emby, but it’s opt-in and for me, that’s how it should be. How long did it take to actually give the option to disable news? Even now the family still see it on their accounts. They really shouldn’t need to sign in to an alien UI (to them) just to disable them. They just want to watch MY media.
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On topic with current trending threads, Plex.tv is having issues again (currently at over 24 hours for many.) For the first time since… oh, earlier this month actually.
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There’s none of that rubbish in Emby. Though there is Emby connect for those who really don’t wanna worry about some settings it’s optional. By default, you can sign into your server(s) directly regardless of whether you are sat next to it or on a different continent.
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There is no such thing as the Emby dance. It’s not needed ever.
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Major deal breakers in Emby often have the fix released within hours of being identified. Not several days waiting for a ninja or other member of staff to acknowledge it (if you’re lucky) and then an " I’ve passed it on up the food chain."
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While things like 7, 9 and 10 are long-standing issues, Plex still seems happy to prioritize the development of things like those in 6, despite however many shiny blog posts, they create to the contrary.
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Trakt tv is massive for me. While Plex removes the ability to use it when plugins are fully gone, Emby (once the plug-in is installed) can manage multiple trakt accounts from within the server UI itself.
So that brings me back to 1,2 & 3. Tautulli. But life is really too short and it’s a sad indictment when something 3rd party is the ONLY positive in Plex (for me at least.) There is something under development in Emby but it’s very basic at the moment. But hey if I can see what shows those I share with have watched and what else is generally trending in my media collection (and I can), then the flashy UI of a 3rd party thing isn’t reason enough to stay. Although it was once.
I’m really interested in what @cayars and @per_PLEX_ed views are. They may have totally different reasons for becoming more disenchanted.
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Thanks for your answer. I’m asking @cayars just cause I’ve read about his changes for a while…
I’ve been using Emby a bit with the android app, but got my lifetime pass refunded a while back because android sync was as broken as Plex’s, and without the pass I can’t use Emby on other platforms… But Plex has been a pain in my *** in the past 12-24 months and about to pay again for Emby.
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How long ago did you use Android sync on Emby? They just did a complete overhaul on it a couple months ago. I haven’t had a problem since.
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Right around then… But I don’t want to derail the thread, I’ve discussed this on their forums already 
thanks for your feedback!
@KarlDag, I still run both Plex and Emby and have for years. I ran Emby in it’s previous state as Media Browser. I support and want to see both succeed as having competition is good for consumers (think Ford & Chevy).
Up until a couple of years ago I personally used Plex a lot more then Emby. The role is now reversed due to Emby improving and Plex regressing for MY NEEDS.
@Xhaka list above is pretty good so I won’t repeat it, but I concur, except Tautulli for me isn’t a major concern. I’ve gotten used to not having it PLUS the fact that since I’ve always used both systems Tautulli never gave me a full picture of my “system” anyway but only on the Plex side. I share far less now than I used to do thanks to being forced to go from Verizon FIOS at around 400 Mb upload to Comcast 5 Mb (now 10 Mb) upload. Not having the upload bandwidth really puts a dent in sharing.
HOWEVER, this lack of upload bandwidth has made me use Cloud Sync more. Popular movies & shows I know multiple users will watch get synced to the cloud so users can play them back from there vs my local server. Emby has always just worked doing this with better features vs Plex. Now Plex has removed this so that forces me to only use Emby for this. This is making my end users switch clients as well.
Besides the list @Xhaka made, DVR/TV was a big point for me. I was very active in TV/DVR testing on the Plex side and expressed my concerns during development but it didn’t matter. We got DVR the way it is with many features lacking. For me this is a deal killer. I personally need multiple lineups and different tuners. I use both cable via Primes and OTA via Quatro devices. I design, build, sell high gain antennas and of course use them myself. I pickup channels from 3 different markets. I get all of my home market which is Philadelphia, get some stations from the NY area and some from the Baltimore/DC area as well as some from ChuckPA’s neck of the woods. I do this because the sports coverage is different and not for normal network shows. For football I can usually get Jets, Giants, Eagles, Ravens, Redskins games OTA plus whatever games are on the national channels. My closest channels are about 42.5 miles and my farthest around 85 miles. I also make use of Multi-Rec which allows you to record the main channel as well as sub-channels on the same mux using one tuner. One Quatro can record 14 things (with my channels) at one time if the stars align correctly. In real-life I can typically get 6 or 7 channels recording at the same time on one Quatro via multi-record. Emby on my system is much more efficient recording. The segmented approach Plex uses is high in IO and I can’t nearly record as many channels at one time compared to Emby.
The lack of being able to use Multi-Rec, not supporting multiple tuner types, not supporting multiple lineups, high IO, not being able to share tuners with other apps properly, and lack of IPTV support for DVR is a killer that keeps me from using Plex for these purposes. Or for the people I setup with Antenna systems.
Emby allows me to pick and choose what users get access to Live TV (in home or not) and what users can record as well. I can also allow direct download of movies/shows as well as sync which my daughter away at University appreciates. Movies/shows she watches a lot of can be D/L once and have it local. She does a movie night with friends and D/Ls things ahead of time for perfect playback later.
With DVR/Live TV functionality being used in Emby I would use the Emby apps for this. Over time I started switching back to Plex less and less as Emby did everything I needed for the most part in it’s apps. In many ways the Emby app experience is better for me. For example in Emby on my Shield TV I can choose large, medium or small posters and I use small which allows me to see 30 movies per page (wall of posters) which makes browsing movies easier. Now the Plex posters look gigantic to me and it seems I need to scroll forever as only a handful of posters fit on each page. I also much prefer the “cast list” on Emby which I use a lot. For example if I choose an actor in Emby I get their BIO as well as what movies they’ve been in, what TV Shows they’ve been in (including episodes as guests), as well as any upcoming movies/shows they will be in that I can record (from EPG). So much more useful information.
Besides the DVR/Live TV (supported in every app on Emby) in Emby another Plex killer for me is this new PMP2 style UI which I loath. I want my Libraries to show up the way I create them and not burried under another menu which may not make sense depending on the library type used to create the library. Emby displays my libs, my way just as Plex used to do pre-PMP2. I can assign certain libs to use a “folder view” which is great for home movies or sporting events so I can have multiple nested folders that make sense. /sports/NFL/2018/Week 5/event.mp4 or /sports/Highlights/catches/one hand/2018/NY Giants/OJB. I’m not limited to 2 or 3 folders deep only.
So DVR/Live TV and non-PMP2 style UIs are the driving force for me more than anything else. However Emby keeps growing into the system I want and Plex is moving away from the system I want. No admin control over news, web shows, podcasts isn’t appreciated by me. Removing cloud sync, device sync that hasn’t ever really worked reliably, etc. Emby just works and per feature has more administrative control.
Emby is also working on a bunch of personal requests of mine that I’ve asked for here for years. Some have already been incorporated and a bunch are coming in the next release or two. In Emby land, I’m not seen as a 1%er with different needs then the average customer but as a great testing platform for new features and a person with a lot of knowledge to actually know what works, what doesn’t and what enhancements would be useful across the board for real world use. Take for example something as simple as being able to setup what audio codecs you want the device to play and in what order IE, 7.1, 5.2, 5.1, Dolby, 2.1, 2 in that order (simplified). So the client will then check the audio tracks and use the “best” available vs the default 2.0 stereo audio and NOT make you change it on every playback. Simple change (more or less) but quite useful for everyone.
Not having to worry about Internet outages is another plus in my book. Since I use “Home” in Plex and the equiv in Emby when Internet or Plex Servers have an issue Plex won’t work. On the other hand Emby will function for a couple of weeks without “phoning home”.
Lastly and I can’t emphasize this enough is communication. Everyone as a normal user has more access to Emby staff (and direction of the products) then Ninja’s do here, sad, but true. Last but not least is the forums. I’m not a fan of discouse but prefer the simple life of well organized forums that meet user needs. This IMHO is another regression from Plex but this is highly personal. I dislike one long page threads and much prefer pages that allow linking, etc.
There are also many more subtle things involved as well. Streaming brain for me gets in the way. Plex Roku client seems to have “not enough bandwidth” issues. The auto bit rate functionality turned on in clients I do not like as it forces transcode of files that would have played back direct. Every new user or client setup on Plex for my system needs adjustments to function properly as I can’t control that from the server. With Emby the user installs the client and it works correctly for my system as I can configure the important things on the server. Also for a new user setup with Emby I can assign them a username and password (they can change) and there is no need for a Plex account. Emby connect is optional and not needed. Not to mention Plex is very slow scanning my system compared to Emby. I can scan my system 5 times with the other product while Plex is still scanning just my movie directories.
How about some advanced features: Full nginx/Cloudflare support, No auto-MERGING of video files (ie two S01E02 episodes with different titles as you aren’t sure which is correct, TV EPG don’t always match our meta-data). Support for multiple GPUs (soon, personal request). Forced 720p (soon, nothing higher) if transcoding so that 1080i can become 720p 59.94 fps on older devices such as Roku3 for full temporal resolution.
So one system is growing in the direction that is making my life easier and one system is growing in a direction that is making my life harder. That line sums things up well. Hopefully this wasn’t to critical.
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I’ve set up Emby and Plex side by side (with some scripts to sync data between the 2) and let everyone in my family choose which one they want to use.
If Plex announces a stupid change again, I can pull the plug within a second.
Curious, what do you sync between the two?
Watched status?
If so then you can also make use of Trakt in Emby and set this up for each user. Can’t sync this data for everyone in Plex but you can in Emby. Always good to have this offline just in case.
I’m syncing with my own Perl scripts … I went this way to get full control and to avoid any restrictions.
So … I started with dumping metadata and posters from non-public sources (a.k. data18) from Plex into Emby. Then I beefed up the metadata gathering on the Emby side, by building up my own scraper sequence (automated scripts to use JAVMovieScraper to initially create a nfo-file followed by scrapers that scrape additional data from tmdb, iafd and imdb) and also to ensure that all files are named and ordered nicely.
So at the very end it’s a fully integrated and scripted system that uploads, places and names files, does the initial metadata-lookup (just to get at least one reference ID) and then uses that to scrape from additional sources. On top I’ve scripts to pull extra data for actors too.
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I don’t need that. Also I don’t want to disclose what me and my family are watching. I mean … the main reason I moved away from Plex was their changed Privacy Policy. So pulling in just another company that will happily sell my data doesn’t make sense.
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Got ya. Love what you’re doing and it sounds similar to my setup. I respect your view on Trakt as well and I get that.
I know many people use Trakt just for sync purposes so I thought I’d throw it out there.
Great job!
Would be easy … you just need e.g. a google account to sync watched movies via the notes function. That’s about 1-2h effort to code and would sync all your shows without giving away any usable data (only IDs on Google).
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If that’s the case then by all means… I’d be looking for a new one too
I see it more like they figured that having too much to support would put them into trouble in the long run and they refocused before it became an issue.
Would you be willing to share your wisdom, Marcel? I’m not having a good time with trakt and would love to be able to sync directly!
I haven’t coded that yet …
wow.
just reading the emby wiki > media organization section, is like a plex wishlist 
edit:
I really dislike the arbitrary device limits though. Between phones/tablets/multiple media players, I can easily have more than a dozen just for myself.
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Just so you know…
You can actually sync every user to individual trakt accounts even in Plex.
That said the dev has been AWOL for a long time other than one critical bug fix. But multi Plex/Trakt syncing works fine still.
shh, you’re not allowed to point out the big alternative also has faults
- We’ll always be open source… Guys we’re going close source
- It’ll always be free… Guys we’re going with device limits, premium, and clients now cost
The forums over there are very similar to here when big changes come down the pipe… full of angry switchers.
To each their own… find what you like and if it stops being that move on
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Aren’t you?
With the possible exception of one person, there isn’t a single post by anyone claiming that “everything” is better in Emby.
