this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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Plex has announced a massive price increase on the service's Lifetime Plex Pass. On July 1, the lifetime subscription option will go from $249.99 to $749.99, an increase of 200%. The price hike will only apply to new subscribers, with no changes to monthly or annual subscription pricing.

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[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 1 points 10 minutes ago

Just to say: MythTv is still a thing...

[–] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Jellyfin has lots and lots of tutorials, fyi. it’s not as intimidating as it seems once you get going with it.

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[–] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 6 points 5 hours ago

The Jellyfin vs Plex thing always struck me as odd. As in - why are we holding JF to a different standard to (say) Immich, Syncthing, Pi-hole or any one of a thousand different programs people self host?

Yes, JF ships multi-user accounts and client apps etc. I get it, "multi-use" is implied, so the comparison isn't totally unfair. But there's a difference between 'this feature exists' and 'this is the primary purpose of the tool'.

The fact that you CAN share it externally doesn't mean everyone running JF is doing that, or that it should be the benchmark the whole project is judged by.

To me, self host means "I host it, myself" not "I host it and then pretend to be Netflix for family and friends". If that's the use case, then of course, Plex away.

It's cool that you CAN share JF externally, and it's cool that Plex does that differently / better. We shouldn't hold one to the standards of the other.

[–] lando55@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

With the original price as $250, a 100% increase would be adding the entire value to itself once (i.e doubling) taking us to $500.

A 200% increase is adding the $250 to the original two times for a total of $750.

So calling it a "200% increase" is correct.

It is true to say that "$750 is 300% of $250" or that "The price has tripled" - both correct, but the increase is only 200% because increase doesn't include the original as part of the value.

[–] netvor@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

TBH---and I'm not a native English speaker---I think it's a bit ambiguously phrased. "Increase by 200%" would be more clear.

[–] lando55@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 hours ago

This makes perfect sense, thank you

[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world -1 points 3 hours ago

Fine. Forget about it.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 9 points 6 hours ago

I “defend” plex against silly complaints, but jesus christ that is one giant leap for no gain. That’s stupid, no one will pay that - though I tend to think that’s the whole point.

[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I got this on Black Friday many years ago for ~70 and despite the pass I am slowly moving over to Jellyfin. I really don't see how they came up with this valuation, seems like a last money squeeze before abandoning ship.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 7 points 6 hours ago

They don’t want lifetime licenses to sell, they want monthly subscriptions from everyone.

[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 15 points 10 hours ago (5 children)

Just out of interest as someone who has recently set up a Jellyfin server - what's the main "value add" of using Plex compared to Jellyfin?

It seems to do everything I want, so I'm not sure why people would pay for Plex over the FOSS version.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago

Realistically the only advantage of Plex is being able to watch it over the internet without a VPN. Which means it makes it easier to get friends and family access to your server or to access it yourself from random smart tvs outside your house.

If you only watch at home or have a fire stick that you take with you to watch abroad or your friends/family members have one and can setup a VPN on it it's not needed.

[–] fluffy@feddit.org 2 points 4 hours ago

Plexamp is just far superior for music. It doesn’t even come close sadly … since I only use it for my music collection I simply prefer Plex … but only because I got lifetime a long time ago for 60 bucks or something …

[–] hedders@fedia.io 9 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

For me, the killer app for Plex is Plexamp, the music client. It's superb, and AFAIK Jellyfin doesn't really have an equivalent (there are 3P options, but they're lacking).

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

For me (Android) I have used these:

  • Finamp
  • Default Jellyfin App
  • Symfonium

And Symfonium can do many sources and is the moat powerful.
Finamp is neat but couldnt do casting to my soundbar via google cast

[–] chrizzly@feddit.org 2 points 6 hours ago

Symfonium with Jellyfin all the way!

[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I didn't try any of them because I additionally set up Navidrome to handle my music collection. But Fintunes, Jamfish and Finamp all look like great music players.

[–] fluffy@feddit.org 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I have a navidrome server. Nothing, really nothing comes close to Plexamp and its features … sadly … but they all ain’t bad and got the basic stuff right

[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What features do you like? Not trying to convince you, I'm just curious.

[–] seang96@spgrn.com 2 points 54 minutes ago* (last edited 54 minutes ago)

Not the same person, but Plexamp uses plexs data / algorithms and had a way to create playlists and selected good songs. Hard to beat when

[–] spizzat2@lemmy.zip 11 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Are you accessing your media from outside of your network?

I have heard that you need to set up a VPN for Jellyfin to securely use your media library remotely. Plex handles all of that for me so that I don't need to deal with it.

[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 4 points 10 hours ago

I do not, and don't plan to. Probably wouldn't be that hard to set up though as someone familiar with nginx.

I guess Plex uses their own VPN under the hood then to make it more convenient?

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 4 points 8 hours ago

Ease of use, and actual secure and usable external access.

Friends/family make an account and tell you their account name or email address, you invite them to your library and that’s it, they can watch/listen to your media on pretty much any device they have. No vpn needed.

Jellyfin is not meant to be exposed to the internet for remote viewing. It also doesn’t have a client on most devices people use to watch tv/movies.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 10 hours ago

Seems funny that they continue to increase the price as that value sharply declines with the limited life left in it.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 103 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

A gentle reminder that Jellyfin exists to those thinking of alternatives.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 10 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

As someone who picked up lifetime for like $45 or whatever it was (I think a 50% off sale?) what must have been 15 years ago...

I run jellyfin. Its just a better experience IMO.

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[–] Mosfar@sh.itjust.works 27 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

For free (FOSS), and is way better than Plex

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 2 points 6 hours ago

If you ignore the mostly horrendous UI, the security problems, the worse transcoding performance, the harder setup, the difficulty to access it remotely in a safe way,... Yeah sure, way better

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 14 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

If you use it weekly it shouldn't be free to you, certainly if you use it more frequently than that. Give money to the projects you depend on or they will disappear.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 4 points 6 hours ago

Supporting software that you use by paying for it?

Ew.

/kidding

I’m a very happy lifetime membership owner and have zero problem with them removing features from the free version. Free doesn’t pay the bills unless you want to become the product.

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[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 40 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I've gotten my money's worth out of the $74.99 I paid for Plex Pass Lifetime several years ago. If they ever get rid of my Plex Pass and try to say "Lifetime didn't actually mean Lifetime", I'll be gone.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 18 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

We've seen other companies pull this move by saying "lifetime" only applies to X version.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 6 hours ago

Sure, but that doesn’t mean Plex will do it.

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Except when I bought my lifetime it meant lifetime for the SERVICE, not the app...

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Did it. I don't remember it saying that. And I bought it around the same time as you since I paid the same price.

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[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 38 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I know that whales exist, but seriously... Who is into self hosting but also into dropping $750 on a service that can end on a whim?

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

They dont want you to buy lifetime they want you to pay month to month.

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 21 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

So basically, they just want to phase our the lifetime plan, but they know removing it outright would cause outrage so they "just" increase the price to massively lower interest and then say: "Well nobody wanted it so we removed the product".

I swear to god plex and the profiteering sons of bitches behind it can go fuck themselves.

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[–] Anonymo@lemmy.world 26 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The company's blog post also described a number of improvements they plan to make

After you pay: "oops, we won't"

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 hours ago

As a lifetime owner, the number of features they've deprecated is probably the worst part.

  • Photo support (luckily Immich came along)
  • Tidal integration (no idea if that was Plex or Tidal's decision)
  • Plugins (god forbid anyone add the functionality they keep removing)

It's close between that and the last app overhaul that removed a bunch of functionality.

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 17 points 14 hours ago (3 children)
[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 38 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

From a purely profit-oriented perspective, no. They're setting up a pretext to eliminate the lifetime license plan due to a lack of interest. No sane person would pay that kind of lump sum for the service (and the insane ones will bring in triple the revenue), so they'll claim that there is no market for it. After that, they're free to crank up the periodic subscription prices.

Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by profiteering opportunism.

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[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 13 points 13 hours ago

Not really. Their plan for a while now is to convert all to subscriptions and this is just their latest salvo. Next up is getting rid of it completely due to "no demand" and then kicking existing lifetime accounts to some static version that won't be supported.

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