Plex has been popular with the self-hosting community for years because it is easy to set up, reliable, and polished enough to replace a streaming service without a ton of inconvenience. Unfortunately, its lifetime license is jumping from $250 to $750 on July 1st, 2026, and the self-hosting community is moving to the alternatives.
Self-hosting and subscriptions don’t mix
For years, Plex was the go-to option for self-hosting media. If you wanted to organize your movie library and stream it to any device in your house, Plex was the best answer. It did the heavy lifting, handled the metadata, and provided a friendly interface that felt like a professional streaming service. It was easy to set up, easier to use, and reliable.
However, recent changes to pricing models are altering that. Plex has introduced “premium” tiers as part of a subscription model, and the price of a lifetime license — which was $250 for a long time — is going to jump to $750 beginning on July 1st, 2026.
Plex is tripling the price of its lifetime pass—and hinting it might disappear forever
A clear ultimatum to get it at current price or forget about it altogether.
The shift hasn’t been popular with the self-hosting crowd. One of the biggest draws of self-hosting your own services is the option to avoid recurring subscription fees, even if you do have to pay up front.
Spiking the price to $750 comes off like a soft phaseout of the lifetime license to push people to the subscription model instead.
When your self-hosting option starts to feel like the same kind of subscription service you’d originally wanted to avoid, it is time to start looking for an alternative. That is where many Plex users find themselves now.
Jellyfin is the best alternative for anyone ditching Plex
A fully free, open-source media server with no subscription fee
If you are looking for the most direct replacement for Plex, you should look at Jellyfin. There are no accounts to manage, no monthly subscriptions, and no “premium” tiers locking away basic features. The project is fully open-source, and everything is included.
There are some minor tradeoffs. Jellyfin doesn’t have the same funding as Plex, so there are some rough edges. Updates for client apps are slower, some smart TV integrations take some fiddling, and you might run into a few situations where you need to manually change settings to get everything working correctly.
- CPU
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Intel Pentium Gold 8505 5-Core
- Memory
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8GB DDR5
- Drive Bays
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4
- Dimensions
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10.14″D x 7.01″W x 7.01″H
- Weight
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3.79 Kilograms
With 4 bays available to add up to 136TB of storage, the UGREEN NAS DXP4800 can store all of your data safely and securely.
Despite those minor issues, the value proposition is incredible. If you just want to serve your media library without being tracked or charged, Jellyfin is a great option. You trade a bit of polish and some for total control and no monthly fees.
I jumped ship to Jellyfin several years ago, and I haven’t regretted it for a moment.
Emby is a freemium alternative
More polished than Jellyfin, but not fully open-source
If you find Jellyfin a bit too rough around the edges, but you’re tired of Plex, Emby serves as a reasonable option. It generally offers a more polished interface and somewhat more stable client apps than Jellyfin, which can make the day-to-day experience better.
Emby isn’t fully open-source and has a paid tier called “Emby Premiere,” which costs $5 per month, $54 per year, or $120 for a lifetime license. Those prices are lower than Plex’s, but it still introduces a paywall—or subscription—for certain features.
You should consider Emby if you want a more hands-off approach than Jellyfin, but you want to move away from the baggage that Plex has accumulated.
Kodi is an option for power users
Kodi is local-first, plugin-driven, and highly customizable
Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby are all designed to be run as servers that you self-host, but that approach isn’t the only way to handle your local media library. Kodi is a media center application that runs directly on the device attached to your TV.
If you have a dedicated Home Theater PC (HTPC), an NVIDIA Shield, or any other media system hooked up to your TV, Kodi is a reasonable option. Its plugin ecosystem is incredible, which allows you to customize almost every aspect of the playback experience. The “downside” — which I’d say is pretty minor — is that you have to do a lot of manual tinkering to get it working just how you like it.
You shouldn’t use Kodi if you’re looking for a simple way to stream your library to a phone or a tablet across the house. However, if you just need something that can play media on your TV, Kodi is a good option.
The self-hosted media landscape is better than ever
The open-source community is more than ready to fill in the gap that Plex is leaving in the self-hosting landscape.
Depending on what you want and your inclination to tinker, you have several clear options. Go with Jellyfin if you want total freedom and don’t mind some tinkering; use Emby if you’re okay with a freemium model, or Kodi if you don’t mind tinkering and you only need media on one device.
If you’re completely undecided, I’d recommend that you try Jellyfin first. It is reliable and pretty easy to get going and provides all of the same functionality as Plex without the subscription fee.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
