I tried Emby for over a month to see what the fuss some people are making about, but in my experience, its a disaster compared to PLEX . Here is what I did not like or found wrong.
1 License
Simple playback for nearly all device requires a premier license and you have a 25 device limit (not concurrently) so think of sharing your server with family or friends and they use more than 1 device they eat up your 25 device limit so fast and there is no way of controlling users to stay oft your server premier. With PLEX simple playback is free on nearly all apps just not mobile apps.
2 Stability
Emby apps crash for very simple reasons such as simply a trailer is not available for your country error so the app crashes and has to be forced closed ( This is true for all their apps)
3 Bugs
There are so many bugs that I cant believe still exist in 2019, an example is on the mobile android app the Play button does not work while phone is in landscape mode, Samsung smart tv has no chapter skipping so to go forward it takes forever as it only skips seconds and FFW to far crashes the APP , no way to mark tv shows as played while in the season as the buttons are still missing for samsung app.
4 Playback
When playing some video files especially transcoded playback glitches every few min , also some files do not play on android devices while PLEX plays the same files as smooth as butter .
Not saying PLEX is perfect , it would be nice to see some more stuff like background image and dark theme like Emby, but overall PLEX is the most stable, just works and mature server.
The license scheme is really a bit complicated…
The device only takes one of the 25 places, if it uses premiere features (simple playback is NOT a premiere feature btw). But I guess this is more a topic for their forums…
Android (TV) playback is not premiere if you unlock the app separately. But I agree, more complicated. Still, emby is targeted as a “home use” software where you share with your close family. 25 device spots should be enough for that. If you share with god-knows who, than you either upgrade your license, or stick with Plex
Apart from that, my experiences are quite the opposite and emby works much better for me. Has to be a question of setup/usage though. But there is nothing wrong in preferring Plex over Emby
Just curious, mind saying what works better? in my setup I did not get any benefits really glitches in playback and no skipping in samsung app is what I got , and if emby is for a small family why do they have premier upgrade for 1000 devices ? never seen a family of 1000
I have the same experience, emby works better for me overall. Just like with Plex it took some time to get configuration right. Biggest pro to me is that emby does let me edit all of the metadata, including cast & crew information.
In general video playback quality is better in emby.
But again, nothing wrong with preferring Plex.
Well the basic 25 devices is probably meant for small/close family
I regularly have problems with Plex either not finding my server (Android mobile), refusing playback aka spinning wheel (Android TV) and other hiccups. Sometimes direct connection is not working with Plex. Nothing spectacular, but all in all it needs to work consistently, and this is what it does with Emby.
With Emby, I directly connect to my “remote” server without any server/service in-between, so the apps always find the server directly and display the content instantly. This is by far the most annoying point at Plex for me. If I fire up my Android tablet when the kids want to watch a single episode of Peppa Pig, I cannot fiddle around 10 minutes until my server is found and content is displayed. I need/want it to work instantly and reliably. This is what Emby delivers for me.
I know I have a special setup, with a remote Plex/Emby server on a VPS behind a reverse proxy, and I know this is probably part of what causes the problems. But the current situation isn’t very different from when I used the Shield as a local Plex server. But still, everybody should use what works better for her/him. For me, this is Emby.
I keep it running as a backup to Plex for now. Many of the showstopping Plex problems that I want to escape also exist with Emby, as far as I know.
For example, neither has a way to prevent HEVC transcoding as far as I can tell. I’d love to have 1080 and 4k coexist and we are closer to that with Plex. But still, Plex occasionally gets confused and tries to transcode HEVC even though it has an x264 copy to work with instead. It creates a DoS on servers that otherwise can handle 10 concurrent x264 transcodes.
Secondly, Emby also puts spoiler screenshots as thumbnails for episodes just like Plex does. I can’t see a way to turn that off with Emby either.
**WRONG! Emby allows you to turn off spoilers for episodes! **
My point is that Emby could easily have me, and I’d pay for it.
I am giving Emby a try just for the Live TV/DVR function. So far it beats Plex by a mile. My biggest complaint about Plex DVR is when watching a program that is being recorded. I get the prompt to watch from live or from the beginning and neither choices work. Emby does this flawlessly. I can even fast forward or reverse the in-progress program. The guide information populated quickly after setup. The guide is intuitive and supports customization such as having recent viewed channels and marked favorite channels appear at the top. Seriously, I was up and running setting up recordings and watching live TV moments after installation.
