this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Yes. You'll have to set up a reverse proxy, I use nginx, and get yourself domain, I use duck DNS, and get a SSL certificate from let's encrypt if your wanting to steam to something like a Chromecast or Roku.

It's not all that hard honestly and there's a good guide here for general home media, including both Plex and jellyfin

https://www.simplehomelab.com/docker-media-server-2024/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Assuming you know them well enough, can't you just give your IP address to folks and forward the port on your router?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Or just use tailscale. Much easier.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

You can, but the reason you use a reverse proxy, isn't revealing your IP or something, it's that without it, the traffic is unencrypted.

As in, log in details and the contents of media streams are sent fully readable by any network node on the way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

No, you don't need a RP.
You can and should set it up though as it's a very good convenient feature.

But you can expose Jellyfin directly.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Here's the thing though, for the average plex user (myself included) you've already used too many acronyms and words I don't understand. Plex serves a purpose for a lot of people, people who are even willing to pay for it to be easy.

Kind of reminds me of Netflix before anyone else did streaming. They had so much stuff I stopped sailing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Yep. Imo now with Plex you are paying for a much simpler and accessible setup. Seems fair enough to me. Lemmy FOSS or die users (every else in this thread seemingly) are not the target audience of Plex but they sure love to complain about it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

I try to use Foss but only when it's a lateral move. I tried Linux mint. It came close but there were so many little things that just didn't make sense to me as someone who used windows for the last 25 years. Do I want to use Windows 11? No, especially with everything they've been doing to it. But in terms of usability, the sacrifices that I make by using Windows 11 outweigh the extra work, frustration, and time spent trying to figure out Linux (tried 3 different distros too).

I have 3 little kids, a full time job and aging parents. I don't have hours every day to try and make stuff work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, welcome to the easy, fast, cheap conundrum.

If you're willing to do a bit of learning and asking the community for help if you get a little stuck, you've got a free solution, if not, which is perfectly okay mind you, then Plex is your solution and you have to decide how much you're willing to pay.

And honestly, of you're going down the home media route with friend and family, you're going to want to set up sonarr, radarr, ombi, transmission with VPN anyways.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm going to be going the free solution route, been trying to find a cheap laptop to turn into my server right now. Do you mind if I reach out about it or do you know of any good instances?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Yeah, I have a docker compose yaml script you can baseline of off and help walk you through with my lessons learned.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Just put it behind tailscale and use the IP. Doing this for a two years now with weekly anime watch togethers with my friends. Not elegant but enough.