I’m a huge Plex fan. I’ve written about my love of Plex many times, but the recent change in pricing of the Lifetime Plex Pass is simply a bad move, and Plex is definitely going to regret it. Jellyfin, on the other hand, is only going to get better thanks to Plex’s boneheaded decision.

Plex has long been the industry standard for running your own streaming server

All good things must come to an end

I have been a Plex user since December of 2013, almost 13 years ago. At that time, the remote access functionality was called myPlex, which is even more interesting.

Plex has been around since 2007, and it has held the title as the best and easiest to use streaming media platform since then. While Jellyfin came out over a decade later, Plex has still held strong as the main recommendation of many for starting a streaming media server.

It was just over a year ago when Plex increased the price of its Lifetime Plex Pass from $120 to $250, and just today, Plex announced that the price of Lifetime Plex Pass will be going up to $750 starting July 1, 2026.

This is a very stark contrast to the Plex that I grew up knowing and loving. The previous Lifetime Plex Pass price of $120 was the same for over a decade before going to $250, and now the jump to $750 feels like a rug pull for Plex users the world over.

While I get an insane amount of use out of my Plex server, it’s hard to deny that this change will drastically change the home streaming media server landscape forever and pave the way for platforms like Jellyfin to take over.

I think the worst part of this recent announcement is the fact that Plex is alluding to the potential cancellation of future Lifetime Plex Pass sales, pushing everyone to monthly subscriptions. In a world where everything is a subscription, at least Plex had the option of offering a buyout, but that could be going away.

I get why Plex charges for some of their features, but I just don’t see why they’re actively pushing the homelabbing community away from their tool. The homelab community is what built Plex, and now they’re alienating them.

Sure, Plex can be used to stream free (or paid) content, but the majority of Plex users are streaming their own content. Stop charging me Netflix prices to watch my own media, Plex.

Jellyfin has silently waited in the shadows for its glow-up moment

While it recently grew in popularity, Plex just skyrocketed it into the limelight

When it comes to streaming media platforms, there really are only two main players: Plex and Jellyfin. Emby and Kodi are definitely options out there, but it seems that Jellyfin is definitely the go-to for non-Plex users, and this pricing change is only going to bolster Jellyfin’s user base.

It seems that Jellyfin has been silently waiting for its glow-up moment, building a Plex replacement in the shadows. Last year, when Plex bumped the price of a Lifetime Plex Pass, Jellyfin’s popularity and its maintenance definitely received a pretty big boost.

Jellyfin offers things that Plex simply can’t compete with, though. There is a plethora of plugins for Jellyfin that can completely change the experience. It offers hardware transcoding for free, while Plex locks that behind Plex Pass. Remote access is also free, though it’s more difficult to set up.

Really, Jellyfin is perfecting what Plex used to be—a free and easy way to stream your own media library. Plex had the DIY streaming server world in its grip and lost it all within less than a year and a half with a few anti-community decisions.​​​​​​​

I’m still a Plex fan at heart, but Jellyfin just won my letter of recommendation

I just really hope Jellyfin is able to streamline some things

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

I want to love Jellyfin, but Plex still does a handful of things better. Remote access is one of those things, and I genuinely prefer the look of Plex over Jellyfin.

However, Plex’s recent pricing change is definitely going to make me rethink my recommendation of them to casual users and even hardcore users. While I still think Plex’s $750 Lifetime Plex Pass could be worth it to the right person, Jellyfin offers a comparable experience for $0, and that’s hard to bear.

Now is the perfect time for the Jellyfin team to lock in and work on the core user experience of the platform. Make it easier to open up Jellyfin behind a reverse proxy, for example. Another thing that Jellyfin really needs to work on is downloads.

Jellyfin is simply poised to take over Plex at this point unless the latter does a 180 on several of its recent changes. My recommendation is going to be placed in the Jellyfin camp unless there’s a specific Plex feature that someone needs. Jellyfin is free, works on all hardware, and delivers the same overall feature set that Plex does.​​​​​​​

OS

Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, Fire TV, Roku OS, WebOS, Xbox,

Price

Free

Jellyfin is the volunteer-built media solution that puts you in control of your media. Stream to any device from your own server, with no strings attached. Your media, your server, your way.

It’s going to be hard for Plex to right this ship

I don’t see a way for Plex to win here. If they reverse course and cancel the price increase, the community will still be mad. Even if Plex lowered the Lifetime Plex Pass back to the $120 it used to be, it would be a knee-jerk move, and the community would very likely still balk at it and ditch.

I’m still going to use Plex in my own homelab, but only because I have an active Lifetime Plex Pass. If I didn’t already own a Lifetime Plex Pass, I would either buy one now (before the price increase on July 1) or start working on moving everything to Jellyfin.

Plex, it was nice knowing you, and I’ll still love you, but this was a bad move.