6 ms·

I’d be interested to know what you find terrible about the PLEX UX. I’ve been a happy user for years and have found the user interface to be reasonably intuitiv

I’d be interested to know what you find terrible about the PLEX UX. I’ve been a happy user for years and have found the user interface to be reasonably intuitive. Perhaps dense in places, but certainly not terrible in my opinion.

PaulHoule 3y ago
I switch to Jellyfin because Plex was always spamming me to try some off-brand streaming service. I know this behavior is so normalized that even Ubuntu Linux does it now but actions have consequences and it does drive users away.
- urbandw311er 3y ago
  I mean to be fair it does need to find a way to pay for itself. I paid for a subscription, removed those streaming channels and I don’t think I have been pestered about them in a long time.
  - drexlspivey 3y ago
    Then every user you onboard has to go through the same excercise and having your relatives go through all that is not fun at all
  - horsawlarway 3y ago
    It really doesn't though, and that's why I prefer an open source solution like Jellyfin. I'm already paying for everything that incurs costs: it's my hardware, streaming my media, on my local network. The only things left are users & developers donating time and energy to the project - and right now there are enough of us doing that to keep it alive. This is absolutely not something that needs a subscription cost. If you want to help - https://jellyfin.org/contribute/ https://jellyfin.org/contribute/
    - BeetleB 3y ago
      > This is absolutely not something that needs a subscription cost. Having a server you can stream from - you're right. For the other features, you're likely wrong. As in - the open source space hasn't come up with a viable solution. I use Plex for DVR, and beyond the one time fee it works. For DVR you need to get the OTA channel guide, and all the reliable services out there charge a subscription fee - which over time will cost more than the Plex one time fee. Also, how good is Jellyfin at skipping credits and ads? As I pointed out in another comment - I'll happily use Jellyfin once it is there. As of now, every time I try it the experience is worse than Plex. So Plex it will be till JF gets there.
    - sircastor 3y ago
      Wasn’t Plex’s prime advantage was being able to stream your media outside your local network? Which means the infrastructure and compatibility to keep that working, not to mention mobile apps which are locked down in app stores.
      - horsawlarway 3y ago
        This is pretty easy with wireguard or tailscale. Or - and I know people don't love this answer - just host it publicly. Yes - it requires some monitoring and a little bit of attention, but at the end of the day it's not that hard, and the risks are fairly low (even if it gets compromised - the world is not over). Jellyfin has apps (which do incur a bit of overhead for maintainers in actual dollars) but honestly, as long as you're not on iphone, you can just build them locally and sideload them. No store/publisher required. I primarily use the android tv client on a nvidia shield running a custom ROM. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv
Timon3 3y ago
I don't know how to navigate Plex anymore. I used to use it roughly 8 years ago, and it was simple - it showed me my media, I could navigate through it, watch it, and nothing more. I tried using it again 2 years ago - and I simply couldn't find my media anymore. I logged in with my account, and the settings showed me that it was connected to my server, but it showed me a bunch of random media that I did not add to my server. I couldn't find a way to navigate to my media after a couple of minutes, so I uninstalled it, replaced it with Jellyfin, and never looked back. Maybe I was too blind to find it, but showing me random media instead of my own is a no-go for a local media server.
- benglish11 3y ago
  Yeah some time ago Plex started adding their own content or pushing you to streaming services, probably in an attempt to be more legitimate. I use Plex currently and I remember this being frustrating. With some configuration you can basically remove those options though. I mainly consume Plex through the Apple TV app and the UX (once configured) is above average.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    Yeah, there are probably ways to mostly get it back to what it once was. The problem really is that a) these ways weren't obvious to me at the time, and b) I don't trust Plex to keep those ways. Enshittification is sadly a one-way street. If Plex kept my content frond-and-center and added useful features on top (e.g. Prime Videos additional information while pausing) I could even have seen myself subscribing to their service. But making the software annoying to use for its main purpose ensures I'll never spend a cent on it.
  - mmanfrin 3y ago
    > probably in an attempt to be more legitimate. I think you're correct, and this is why I forgive Plex its annoying transgressions.
  - c-hendricks 3y ago
    The streaming integration is pretty handy, helps answer the "what service is this on" question. I don't think it's pushing you to them at all, if you're looking at a show or movie that's available to you via Plex, they're listed first.
xienze 3y ago
For me it's two things: 1. You have to use their login service to log into a server that's... self-hosted. 2. The Plex app has very limited codec support, at least on iOS. In particular, I rip directly from disc and Plex would require transcoding for UHDs, or Blu-rays with TrueHD/DTS/etc. audio. Infuse has support for all of that out of the box so my Jellyfin server doesn't do any transcoding at all, and AppleTV/iPad/etc. are more than capable of decoding even full bitrate UHD content.
trhr 3y ago
Plex is cluttered, messy, not free, not available on all devices, and harder to run on Kubernetes. I can watch my Jellyfin shows from a Flatpak local client on my desktop, pause and move to my phone, pause and move to my TV. That's three different operating systems, and at no point do they transcode, because it's not going through a browser.
atombender 3y ago
I've used Plex for more than a decade, and I've seen it drop in quality over the years as Plex the company has pivoted towards being a streaming service. Personally, my main beef is that as a client app, the streaming service stuff has bled into the personal library UI in obnoxious ways. For example, the default "tab" is called "Recommended". This shows some kind of algorithm-based feed of stuff they think you want to watch. This tab is the default even for your own private library. Why would it suggest stuff from a library that I curate? It's very strange. In the browser, it remembers your last active tab to some extent, but the native apps (like on AppleTV) does not. When I open the app and go to a folder, I just see recommended stuff. Similarly, if you go to the screen for a TV show in your library, it will show a "Related shows" section. It's my library, I know what is there, I don't want these spammy algorithmic things. Occasionally I run into other parts of the app, which invariably try to steer me towards using their streaming service. It's just a constant reminder of how it's no longer designed for my purposes.
- urbandw311er 3y ago
  > Why would it suggest stuff > from a library that I curate? Mostly to try and help save time, eg to suggest you could resume a couple of recently watched episodes that you haven’t finished yet. Or that you might want to watch something that was just added to the library in the last few minutes. In most cases this has proved useful to me and I’ve found it to be a timesaver.
  - atombender 3y ago
    No, I disagree. On the Recommended tab for my TV show folder, the rows are: - "Recently released" and "Recently added", which I agree are useful — but don't belong in a separate tab, as I always sort by recentness. - "Start watching": Shows it thinks I should start watching; why? I know what I have and what I intend to watch. - "Rediscover": Shows I have started watching but not finished, pointless. I could just browse. - "More in [random genre]": Pointless, I know my library, it's my library. - "Top rated TV": Ditto. - "Recently played": Never use this, doesn't belong under "Recommended". It's all just pointless stuff, and not appropriate as a default view when I'm navigating into my own library.
kaetemi 3y ago
The webOS client runs at an amazing 1fps. For random episodes Plex decides it must transcode (even though they play just fine over DLNA). (I have transcoding disabled so it just refuses to play those.) Randomly just a blank screen after the last episode in a deck is done playing. Resuming from screensaver ends up in a broken user select screen half of the time. One time it was even showing the user select while the remote was still blindly controlling the UI hidden behind the logon, as the last user.
lostlogin 3y ago
> I’d be interested to know what you find terrible about the PLEX UX 1) Adding new users is harder than it should be (the sharing tab takes me to ‘camera roll’ and ‘synced content’ on my phone. ‘Manage library access’ is the correct section to go to. 2) Getting new users to watch default res (not transcode) is not easy. 3) Deleting the pinned crap that gets added every so often is frustrating. 4) Finding a particular setting when you want it is way too hard - settings are too spread out. 5) Splitting out content is irritating (eg mine versus a library shared with me). 6) The server can end up chewing up an absolute mass of storage with its logs, and app data. This is hard (impossible?) to manage from the UI. 7) Probably not a UI bug, but Plex loses the sound/video sync sometimes. Making the show transcode is the only reliable fix I’ve found. I wish I could chose to advance or regard the audio in settings while watching. Or even better, just not break.

PaulHoule 3y ago

I switch to Jellyfin because Plex was always spamming me to try some off-brand streaming service. I know this behavior is so normalized that even Ubuntu Linux does it now but actions have consequences and it does drive users away.

urbandw311er 3y ago
I mean to be fair it does need to find a way to pay for itself. I paid for a subscription, removed those streaming channels and I don’t think I have been pestered about them in a long time.
- drexlspivey 3y ago
  Then every user you onboard has to go through the same excercise and having your relatives go through all that is not fun at all
- horsawlarway 3y ago
  It really doesn't though, and that's why I prefer an open source solution like Jellyfin. I'm already paying for everything that incurs costs: it's my hardware, streaming my media, on my local network. The only things left are users & developers donating time and energy to the project - and right now there are enough of us doing that to keep it alive. This is absolutely not something that needs a subscription cost. If you want to help - https://jellyfin.org/contribute/ https://jellyfin.org/contribute/
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    > This is absolutely not something that needs a subscription cost. Having a server you can stream from - you're right. For the other features, you're likely wrong. As in - the open source space hasn't come up with a viable solution. I use Plex for DVR, and beyond the one time fee it works. For DVR you need to get the OTA channel guide, and all the reliable services out there charge a subscription fee - which over time will cost more than the Plex one time fee. Also, how good is Jellyfin at skipping credits and ads? As I pointed out in another comment - I'll happily use Jellyfin once it is there. As of now, every time I try it the experience is worse than Plex. So Plex it will be till JF gets there.
  - sircastor 3y ago
    Wasn’t Plex’s prime advantage was being able to stream your media outside your local network? Which means the infrastructure and compatibility to keep that working, not to mention mobile apps which are locked down in app stores.
    - horsawlarway 3y ago
      This is pretty easy with wireguard or tailscale. Or - and I know people don't love this answer - just host it publicly. Yes - it requires some monitoring and a little bit of attention, but at the end of the day it's not that hard, and the risks are fairly low (even if it gets compromised - the world is not over). Jellyfin has apps (which do incur a bit of overhead for maintainers in actual dollars) but honestly, as long as you're not on iphone, you can just build them locally and sideload them. No store/publisher required. I primarily use the android tv client on a nvidia shield running a custom ROM. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv

Timon3 3y ago

I don't know how to navigate Plex anymore. I used to use it roughly 8 years ago, and it was simple - it showed me my media, I could navigate through it, watch it, and nothing more. I tried using it again 2 years ago - and I simply couldn't find my media anymore. I logged in with my account, and the settings showed me that it was connected to my server, but it showed me a bunch of random media that I did not add to my server. I couldn't find a way to navigate to my media after a couple of minutes, so I uninstalled it, replaced it with Jellyfin, and never looked back. Maybe I was too blind to find it, but showing me random media instead of my own is a no-go for a local media server.

benglish11 3y ago
Yeah some time ago Plex started adding their own content or pushing you to streaming services, probably in an attempt to be more legitimate. I use Plex currently and I remember this being frustrating. With some configuration you can basically remove those options though. I mainly consume Plex through the Apple TV app and the UX (once configured) is above average.
- Timon3 3y ago
  Yeah, there are probably ways to mostly get it back to what it once was. The problem really is that a) these ways weren't obvious to me at the time, and b) I don't trust Plex to keep those ways. Enshittification is sadly a one-way street. If Plex kept my content frond-and-center and added useful features on top (e.g. Prime Videos additional information while pausing) I could even have seen myself subscribing to their service. But making the software annoying to use for its main purpose ensures I'll never spend a cent on it.
- mmanfrin 3y ago
  > probably in an attempt to be more legitimate. I think you're correct, and this is why I forgive Plex its annoying transgressions.
- c-hendricks 3y ago
  The streaming integration is pretty handy, helps answer the "what service is this on" question. I don't think it's pushing you to them at all, if you're looking at a show or movie that's available to you via Plex, they're listed first.

xienze 3y ago

For me it's two things: 1. You have to use their login service to log into a server that's... self-hosted. 2. The Plex app has very limited codec support, at least on iOS. In particular, I rip directly from disc and Plex would require transcoding for UHDs, or Blu-rays with TrueHD/DTS/etc. audio. Infuse has support for all of that out of the box so my Jellyfin server doesn't do any transcoding at all, and AppleTV/iPad/etc. are more than capable of decoding even full bitrate UHD content.

trhr 3y ago

Plex is cluttered, messy, not free, not available on all devices, and harder to run on Kubernetes. I can watch my Jellyfin shows from a Flatpak local client on my desktop, pause and move to my phone, pause and move to my TV. That's three different operating systems, and at no point do they transcode, because it's not going through a browser.

atombender 3y ago

I've used Plex for more than a decade, and I've seen it drop in quality over the years as Plex the company has pivoted towards being a streaming service. Personally, my main beef is that as a client app, the streaming service stuff has bled into the personal library UI in obnoxious ways. For example, the default "tab" is called "Recommended". This shows some kind of algorithm-based feed of stuff they think you want to watch. This tab is the default even for your own private library. Why would it suggest stuff from a library that I curate? It's very strange. In the browser, it remembers your last active tab to some extent, but the native apps (like on AppleTV) does not. When I open the app and go to a folder, I just see recommended stuff. Similarly, if you go to the screen for a TV show in your library, it will show a "Related shows" section. It's my library, I know what is there, I don't want these spammy algorithmic things. Occasionally I run into other parts of the app, which invariably try to steer me towards using their streaming service. It's just a constant reminder of how it's no longer designed for my purposes.

urbandw311er 3y ago
> Why would it suggest stuff > from a library that I curate? Mostly to try and help save time, eg to suggest you could resume a couple of recently watched episodes that you haven’t finished yet. Or that you might want to watch something that was just added to the library in the last few minutes. In most cases this has proved useful to me and I’ve found it to be a timesaver.
- atombender 3y ago
  No, I disagree. On the Recommended tab for my TV show folder, the rows are: - "Recently released" and "Recently added", which I agree are useful — but don't belong in a separate tab, as I always sort by recentness. - "Start watching": Shows it thinks I should start watching; why? I know what I have and what I intend to watch. - "Rediscover": Shows I have started watching but not finished, pointless. I could just browse. - "More in [random genre]": Pointless, I know my library, it's my library. - "Top rated TV": Ditto. - "Recently played": Never use this, doesn't belong under "Recommended". It's all just pointless stuff, and not appropriate as a default view when I'm navigating into my own library.

kaetemi 3y ago

The webOS client runs at an amazing 1fps. For random episodes Plex decides it must transcode (even though they play just fine over DLNA). (I have transcoding disabled so it just refuses to play those.) Randomly just a blank screen after the last episode in a deck is done playing. Resuming from screensaver ends up in a broken user select screen half of the time. One time it was even showing the user select while the remote was still blindly controlling the UI hidden behind the logon, as the last user.

lostlogin 3y ago

> I’d be interested to know what you find terrible about the PLEX UX 1) Adding new users is harder than it should be (the sharing tab takes me to ‘camera roll’ and ‘synced content’ on my phone. ‘Manage library access’ is the correct section to go to. 2) Getting new users to watch default res (not transcode) is not easy. 3) Deleting the pinned crap that gets added every so often is frustrating. 4) Finding a particular setting when you want it is way too hard - settings are too spread out. 5) Splitting out content is irritating (eg mine versus a library shared with me). 6) The server can end up chewing up an absolute mass of storage with its logs, and app data. This is hard (impossible?) to manage from the UI. 7) Probably not a UI bug, but Plex loses the sound/video sync sometimes. Making the show transcode is the only reliable fix I’ve found. I wish I could chose to advance or regard the audio in settings while watching. Or even better, just not break.