Sorry, have been a loyal user of Plex for years - Premium account etc… but as its grown in sophistication it has become a victim of its own success. Its getting increasingly clunky, when things go wrong - (which for me is the libraries just suddenly stop finding content an ceases to work) they really go wrong. I Only find the fixes are reinstalling each time, or being a DBA to ‘repair the DB’ - wtf?? There are just too many ‘available fixes’ and I don’t have hours to trawl forums.
So have any folks jumped ship? I know there is Kodi and Serviio any others you recommend?
Emby is something I’ve seen mention many times the last couple of months so maybe that could be something?
I’ve never tried it though, Plex works fine for me. But I do feel the urge to throw Plex out the window every single time I help someone set up a new plex server. The way they try to choke my throat with “free” content is done in a pretty bad way if you ask me. But oh well, if it helps them I guess we all benefit. Not that I understand how anyone can look at the free movies and/or tv-channels and think “this seems good, let’s watch something from here”.
I didn’t have a great time with Emby. I didn’t find their Dev team very personable for me at least.
I’d recommend JellyFin as an alternative.
Plex is more robust than any of their competitors but I understand there have been some strange issues as of recent with items for myself that were never a problem in the past but I believe the Plex personal will figure it all out in time.
used emby and someone hacked my sever? and changed admin which then agusted to read the whole of my computer. and copy docs and anything else. tracked to an ip in spain in a flat by google maps and a bit of software. Emby looks good and does work but with hackers hitting thier database of user and thier ip addresses not worth the trouble.
I’ve been running Plex and Emby side by side for a while now. I’ve been happy with Emby but perhaps because we’ve gotten used to it, continue to use Plex most of the time. I don’t have any issues with Emby and actually prefer it’s interface when viewing on a mobile device. Additionally, there are some files (movies) that Plex won’t play for me but Emby has no problem with. On the other hand, Plex is a bit more polished. I haven’t had any hacker issues and I haven’t purchased a pass or premier version. I find both forums (Emby and Plex) to be active and helpful.
Have you opened a thread to try and have someone from Plex look at your log files and try to figure out the issue instead of just reinstalling or “being a DBA” to try and get to the bottom of the issue? Based on what you are saying something is wrong and not working properly as if what you were experiencing was the case, there would more than likely be a whole bunch of posts on that.
When you run into the issue, you should open a post and attach your logs so that somebody from Plex can look at them. You will also possibly want to save a copy of your DB with the issue and get a copy over to Plex so that can look at it and see what is going on.
While looking for viable alternatives is certainly an option, it makes sense to try and figure out the root cause of the issue for Plex and to see if it is an issue on your end or a bigger issue.
Like others have said Emby and Jellyfin would be the alternatives that are equivalent to Plex.
-Shark2k
Emby and Jellyfin will be your major options. Kodi might be an option, but the setup isn’t nearly as easy and access from remote is a no-go unless you want to set up a VPN tunnel on each device to your internal network. Each platform will have its pluses and minuses.
I run Jellyfin side-by-side with Plex. Plex can’t seem to get Live TV and DVR to work right with Android clients (Fire device and Android phones) since it broke with one of the updates a few months ago. Also, when I’m traveling, the Plex client on my phone will sometimes restart instead of playing content despite a strong 4G signal… It appears to be linked to specific cell towers. Its gotten so bad that the kids know when to switch to Jellyfin based on where we are on long car rides. I’ve never had any playback issues with Jellyfin. Jellyfin also does not have any fees (except for the Guide, which is a 3rd party and very reasonable).
On the other hand, Jellyfin is not as polished-looking, even with the odd UI changes Plex has made recently. Its more difficult to get TV shows to import properly if there is an Air vs DVD order you prefer. Remote access is free, but CAN be a little cumbersome to set up properly.
I’ve never used Emby…
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