Just saw a couple posts on the forum, one notes that the player team got laid off. And another that it was more than 20 people.

https://forums.plex.tv/t/2026-20-0-beta-ios-and-tvos-4k-dovi-hdr10-won-t-play-infinite-spinning-circle/943966/92

https://forums.plex.tv/t/are-the-desktop-apps-dead/935518/118

Who the hell has $1,200 burning a hole in their pocket

Are the people who run Plex smoking crack???

Feel like ads on Plex know too much about you? Here's how you can opt out of Plex selling your data to third parties.

The latest update is pure slop. It's slow, buggy and worst of all has poor thoughtless design decisions. You will lose users to a competitor, maybe one that doesn't even exist it yet. If you add enough friction to a product, eventually something will replace it. Do you want to end up being the next Adobe?

There's no shame in admitting you've made a mistake and keeping whatever goodwill you have with your userbase.

I know several members of your team read this subreddit and I hope the message is clear.

thank you for the new client update.

thank you for forcing me to go through "welcome to Plex" screens like i haven't been using the app for 15 years... on each profile, each device. I've seen it 21 times so far.

thank you for resetting ALL of the individual profile customizations.

but most of all, thanks for changing the default view of every library to "recommended" instead of "browse', which displays "no media found" (how is that ever an acceptable message here?) to every person who connects, getting me "Plex is broken" messages from my wife, and leading to a couple hours of troubleshooting because everything looked fine on my end.

i just want to thank you

Hello,

I’ve been working on a new alternative Plex client called Plezy, built with Flutter, and it’s finally ready to share!

Plezy is a modern, open-source Plex client that runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, and unlike the official app, you don’t need to pay a subscription for remote streaming.

Key Features

• Open-source - transparent and community-driven
• Cross-platform - desktop + mobile support
• MPV-based video player for great playback and codec compatibility
• No subscriptions required for remote access
• Lightweight, clean Flutter UI

Plezy is available to download for all platforms, and is also available on the App Store and Play Store.

👉 https://github.com/edde746/plezy

I built Plezy because I love Plex but wanted something open, simple, and not locked behind subscriptions or streaming restrictions. If that sounds good to you, give it a try. I’d love your feedback, bug reports, or even pull requests!

Should make some people happy, my wife included if true.

This is the feature I use the most on Plex to watch anime with my friend, I’m pretty sure if they implement it back next it’s gonna be a paid option.. sucks.

Sometimes I feel like I am in the minority of the Plex users in this group. I have been a lifetime Plex Pass holder for about 10 years, but I use Plex for myself and my immediate family members…. At home and when we travel. So many posts talk about people having large groups of users. I mean, I can read between the lines here, but I also have to read every post with a grain of salt to see if this is an average household plex user, or someone who regularly sees 10+ streams from their server.

UPDATE: I am not alone

My name is u/CoppellCitizen and I have recently downgraded almost my entire library to 1080p and below.

To be honest, I was the only person in my house (also out of the house) who truly appreciated 4K. Since that was the case, I decided to just downgrade my movies and gain back much needed HDD space.

Have no fear, the movies I love the most on 4K stayed that way, but the vast majority of my library didn’t warrant the 4K appreciation if I was the only one who cared. My wife and kids have not said a thing about the quality change so in the long run it’s a win. To be completely frank, 1080p looks really good on our 4K TVs.

There's so much talk about Plex client going to sh!t and people wondering if its worth flipping over to Jellyfin. So...

You don't have to 'flip over' from one to the other. Jellyfin will install side-by-side with Plex. No need to wonder. Just install it and point it at your same libraries.

They will share the media just fine. You can test out Jellyfin or another server program now while you still run Plex. If you like it you can slow migrate. Move one TV over at a time. Or one tablet. Or one family shared house.

I'm still on Plex because my lifetime PlexPass was like $50 so I'm good. But even I recognize that the client programs are becoming increasingly enshitified so it's probably going to be forced on me at some point.

I run both because I know one day I'll be flipping over which client I'm using. So its easier to spend 5 minutes a week to keep both server software's on parity than to deal with a massive change over all at once.

Here there are side-by-side… well… one above the other. Its "same only different"… like there's any difference between a Toyota and Mazda anymore - Speedometer on the left or right. Same here. Do you want "Continue Watching" or "Up next" ??

At most - There's minor differences in naming conventions of files if you track different `editions` like 'Theatrical` and `Directors Cut` etc.

Title is from the linked article.

Any thoughts if this is going to run Plex better?

I’ve got local auth and DLNA setup, yet no access to my own server via any client apps. Yay.

yup.. guess plex is trying to pull a sonos..

So we knew its bad with maybe 2-3 people working on it…but never thought literally no one is except the person who left in his spare time out of passion

Elan response “ Plex kindly allowed me to keep access to Plexamp source and make changes to it, but I’m the only one working on it.”

My in-laws are CONSTANTLY complaining about having to pay XYZ streaming service to watch anything. Every Christmas, they come over and say how cool it is that I can essentially watch whatever it is and pay nothing. I even have Overseerr and everything completely implemented. Everything "just works." Finally, this year, I asked if they wanted me to give them remote access and they were like "Yes! Please!"

Onboarded them without much fuss and got them logged in. They got home 4 days ago and said they got the app on Roku and they'll check it out.

AND...........nothing. No activity. Zero. And it isn't like they are busy. I know for a fact the whole household is still home on vacation from work.

This has happened to me before, too. Had another close family member who got logged in and then never used it again. Six months later they were complaining that they couldn't watch a movie because it was $13 on Amazon. I was like "it's literally on Plex..." They said "Oh, I forgot I had that."

What is wrong with people? lol

I built an app that turns your Plex library into a 90s-style cable TV experience

NostalgiaTV is an Android TV and mobile app that turns your Plex library into a fully simulated retro cable TV lineup.

Instead of choosing what to watch… you just tune in.

It automatically builds channels, schedules shows, and gives you a classic 90s-style program guide so it feels like flipping through real cable again.

For the past couple weeks, nearly 100 testers have participated in the beta testing phase and have given me tons of feedback and feature requests. Nearly all of them have been incorporated into the app to make it feature-packed. I'll be resetting your app access now. This will not remove all your custom channels, but it will take you off of the tester list. Again, thank you for all your support! :)

If you want to check it out, it’s on the Google Play Store available for download here! You can either try out the demo or try the first 10 channels for free!

What it does

NostalgiaTV takes your existing Plex media and:

• Automatically creates 60+ themed parody channels (Dizzy Channel, Animal Globe, National Geography, Pennyodeon, etc.) with more on the way
• Generates a continuous 24/7 live TV schedule
• Shows everything in a retro Electronic Program Guide
• Lets you channel surf instead of browsing

No playlists. No complicated setup.
Connect Plex → choose libraries → done.

The vibe 🎮📼

If you grew up with cable, this should feel familiar:

• Pixel-style 90s guide
• Classic fonts, colors, and navigation sounds
• “Whatever’s on is what’s on” energy
• Background-TV-friendly viewing

There are currently four themes:

• Retro — classic bold cable look
• Vintage — softer nostalgic styling
• Premium — cleaner modern guide
• Rad-Lad — retro-futuristic green terminal-style UI

Power-user stuff (optional but fun)

If you do want to customize things:

• Extensive Custom channels configuration
• Upload custom channel logos
• Multiple sorting methods for channels/content
• Optional vintage commercial placement between shows
• Cloud schedule syncing across devices
• Import/export configs for easy setup on multiple devices
• Full web interface with guide view + all app controls
• Wide codec support including 4K / HDR / Dolby Vision
• Direct Play + audio passthrough when supported
• Automatic transcoding for smoother playback

Still, none of this is required — the app is designed so you can just connect Plex and start watching.

Pricing

No subscriptions.

There’s a one-time lifetime Pro upgrade if you want more channels, custom stations, commercials, cloud schedule syncing across devices, web configuration capabilities, and so much more — but the core experience works out of the box.

Future Plans

The app has soooo many features already but there's still room for more.

My update roadmap:

• Default Music Channels (Tune Choice - Genres aka Rock, Classical, Jazzy, etc). This will be dedicated channels to playing your music just like the real thing. I'm working on this one right now and should be out soon... hopefully lol.
• More channel customization options (some people are asking for tons more customization options. Weekend schedules, cyclic shuffling options, etc.)
• More optimizations to the app in general. The phone app feels great but the TV app can definitely be better.
• More bug fixes (obviously)! There are bugs on the app, not going to lie and say there aren't but the core functionality is there and getting better.

These are just a few examples of what I'm working on. If you'd like to post bugs or feature requests, or just showoff your setups, come over to the NostalgiaTV Discord server and I'll do my best to respond in a timely manner.

Final notes

• If you’ve used QuasiTV (or are waiting for Coax), those are great projects too.
NostalgiaTV is more focused on quick setup + a polished retro cable experience, inspired by the custom setups I spent hours tweaking in QuasiTV, DizqueTV, and everything else in between.

Again, thank you to all the beta testers that provided me feedback the past couple weeks. I appreciate all your support and kind words. This app is in a far better position than it was 2 weeks ago and I plan to keep supporting it and adding more default channels and optimizations throughout the app's life. Hope you all enjoy the app and get as much out of it that I do.

Thanks everyone!

Just thought I’d voice my concerns about Plex as someone who has seen this before from other companies that once offered lifetime passes…

With the most recent updates being as bad as they are, as well as layoffs happening within their company, Plex looks eerily similar to other companies that drove themselves under and eventually restructured under a different name in order to break user lifetime pass agreements in favor of an all subscription based platform and changing to a different business model.

Just saying… I think this is a controlled burn (As in they’re purposely tanking their existing platform) and everyone who paid for lifetime passes should be watching this closely.

I can’t imagine anyone investing in the lifetime passes right now, but I would advise anyone here from Google, or who is somehow just now finding out about Plex to not sink any money into it, subscription or lifetime pass.

I 3d printed a “case” to create a mobile media center. Basically by plugging this into any outlet, I can wirelessly stream my media via all our Plex devices. All in all it cost me $300 for all parts involved.

It houses 5 individual parts: 1. A travel router that provides a wireless signal to connect to. It doesn’t need internet; its purpose is to just broadcast Plex’s content to our devices. 2. The server. A Zimaboard that runs Plex Media Server 3. The hard drive. It stores over 200TB of digital content. 4. A cooling fan to keep the server from over heating. 5. The extension cord. This, once plugged in, provides power to the devices listed above.

It’s “smallish” footprint allows me to leave it in my backpack, simply pull out the end of the extension cord, plug it in, and “Bob’s your uncle”, we can all watch our plex content regardless of sitting close to each other (the wireless router creates the network for us to connect to). Been a long time Plex user and this makes it even more useful for us.

Yep... that's right, and probably explains a lot.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elanfeingold/

Kind of sad. I remember the beginnings of Plex and the first couple of years, when Elan was everywhere. He used to be the visionary, public face of the company.

Oh well... I guess venture capital and everything it entails killed his passion. Who knows.

Container is up to date but oh yea....lots of port scans