I’ve been thinking about this more and more. According to the sidebar, this community is “A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.” Based on that I don’t think Plex qualifies.
Privacy: Plex clearly records the metadata of what you watch. When I used it, it would send me a report by email of what my “friends” were watching. Even with that turned off, their services still track telemetry.
Control: Plex has all of it. They can (and do) make unilateral changes to the service, how authentication works, where you can run it, etc.
So I ask, when you are hosting something that is entirely dependent on a commercial entity to function, is Plex really selfhosting in the spirit of this community?
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Please don’t try to gatekeep software or turn selfhosting into a Professional Redditor Larper shitwar like iOS vs Android. Literally no one needs or wants that.
You can criticise Plex for its many shortcomings, that’s valid. Even better if you contribute to Jellyfin so it can overcome its shortcomings. But saying Plex is not self-hosted for puritan reasons is not a good look and smells like StackOverflow and elitist neckbeards; you’re disqualifying people from the community just because you, in your infinite pedantic wisdom, cannot comprehend that they also have valid reasons for using what they use.
By this logic:
- If you use the internet, nothing you access through it is self-hosted, because your ISP dictates if it’s allowed or not. Tailscale, WireGuard, OpenVPN, or a direct port connection are all subject to this. However you can access Jellyfin remotely is subject to this.
- Docker isn’t self-hosted - you depend on Docker Inc, their image registry will be aware of some details about your host, including your IP, which is technically PII and is directly linked to you.
- Let’s Encrypt certificates aren’t self-hosted because they’re an external CA and collect data like your email.
- Jellyfin is not self-hosted, it depends on TMDB and OMDB which are commercial or external.
- Pi-hole is not self-hosted as it depends in many cases on GitHub or external resources for its block lists, and it depends on public resolvers to operate.
- Ubuntu is not self-hosted because Canonical controls everything and has telemetry
- Neither is Windows, Mac, Debian, Arch, or even FreeBSD - they control updates and packages and if they randomly become evil, they have levers on you no matter what. Maybe TempleOS lol.
- Nextcloud is not self-hosted because they control the add-on store, update servers and has telemetry.
- The BitTorrent protocol isn’t self hosted because you rely on trackers and they collect telemetry about your client
- Media piracy isn’t self-hosted because you’re relying on other people to produce it for you
- If you get phone notifications, emails, messages, or whatever else - those aren’t self hosted. Even if you host Ntfy you’re still relying on Apple or Google notification relay servers.
I could go on.
By any stretch of this line of thinking, even the mere act of downloading any software in the first place disqualifies it from counting as self-hosted, because you didn’t build it from scratch and you depend on an external resource, your ISP, a DNS resolver, your operating system, your hardware (microcode, BIOS), your browser, and so on and so forth. The logic breaks down very fast. Don’t.
Sir this is a Wendy’s
Fr tho why would you even start?
OP is clearly talking about the core values of this community (named SelfHosted btw) and whether or not the parent company of Plex (clearly a self-hosted piece of software that happens to be a critical component of Plex’s SaaS product) operates in the spirit of this community and your galaxy brain is over here arguing the semantics of the dictionary definition of the word self-hosted lmao
You were so busy trying to come up with examples of how they’re wrong you forgot to correct them about the name
“Sir you’re actually talking about Plex Media Server, Plex the company is a company and clearly not a piece of self-hosted software”
Making fun of someone to deflect from their valid criticism hasn’t worked on me as an audience to an argument since way before I hit puberty, but I understand it might still work on some other people.
Sure any criticism is valid, it’'s less valid when they miss OPs point, and after a certain length it becomes unnecessarily condescending.
I’m not trying to deflect from their criticism or how it displays their misunderstanding of OPs point, I’m trying to say they were being an asshole about it
Sorry if I came off that way. About misunderstanding the point - look at the other comments. People are making the same points as me. I don’t think I have misunderstood anything here, and I don’t think being a long response automatically makes it any less valid to understand how nuanced and all encompassing our dependence on third parties is.
You’re the one saying “this is a Wendy’s” which feels quite condescending in a post explicitly asking for opinions on how where Plex falls in the selfhosting community, including as defined in the sidebar.
I don’t think they were being an asshole about it.
But you’re not locked into Plex. You have your files already on your hardware and you have the ability to reuse those files for any other service.
at this point, Plex is self-shooting-in-the-foot
It’s self hosting by the literal definition that you host the server yourself.
That it’s closed source and sends all kinds of data to another server is an entirely separate (and valid) concern.
As much as I agree with the concerns around Plex, I would rather we didn’t start gatekeeping the self hosting community with arbitrary requirements and grey lines around what is and isn’t “true self hosting” or whatever. I would far rather we inform people and let them make their own choices about what they want to host on their private devices and networks.
Is <insert thing here> really Self Hosting?
I don’t really get hung up on the nomenclature and definitions. If you run your services off of a VPS and call it selfhosting, more power to you. No skin off my nose. If you run your services off of a homelab rack that dims the lights whenever you power it on and you call it selfhosting, more power to you. If you’re running your services off of an old repurposed, disposable vape unit, and you call it selfhosting, git sum. It’s a big umbrella and we can all coexist without nitpicking each other. Gatekeeping is something I don’t do, and it gets tiresome to hear others regurgitate the same trope over and over again.
ETA: @CallMeAl@piefed.zip, nice profile shot.
If you run your services off of a homelab rack that dims the lights whenever you power it on
If you are in this situation, then you definetly should get some more power, or at least a UPS to make sure you don’t trip a breaker.
Ooohhhhh, now I get it.
My first thought was dimming the lights like when a movie starts and that seemed silly.
Hey if you like a more intimate setting when you’re with your server, far be it from me to interfere. Throw on a little Barry White and some Ottis Redding and git sum.
@irmadlad This is such a great idea. I sometimes tell my rack, “you are my everything” and I give it whatever it wants. I’m about to reposition some of the equipment. That is plenty intimate enough to play Barry White.
Bow Chicka Wow Wow
Also make sure you don’t have a loose neutral somewhere 😬
If you are in this situation
It was a whimsical exaggeration.
It was a whimsical exaggeration.
… Taken to it’s logical conclusion and combined with snarky, but mildly helpful, advice.
As is tradition.
Achtually, if the lights dim less power to him.
No, no, he needs more power if the lights are dimming! That means the servers are hungry!
Yeah this is where I am at too, it’s more about who is responsible when it breaks for me and if Plex breaks I have to fix it no matter where it runs. This community is more about learning how to do it than what specific tools to use for me as well, all tools come and go over a long enough timeframe, this is a good place to learn about the next one.
The gates hath been declared open!
Back in the late 60s, I heard a song by Jimi Hendrix called ‘If A 6 Were 9’. One line has stuck with me for decades and I’ve pretty much lived my life this way:
I got my own life to live. I’m the one that’s gonna have to die when it’s time for me to die. So let me live my life the way I want to.
Well that would be the description of the community, but the actual rules section doesn’t say anything about privacy/control.
So at the end of the day Plex is self hosted (you run most of it) so it should qualify. It might not 100% match the spirit of self hosting it does still meet the definition.
You can argue most Jellyfin/emby installs have the same problem because most users are still are dependent on external services because of things like metadata plugins.
And on the privacy front those plugins aren’t any better than Plex. For instance The Movie DB which is the primary movie and TV metadata provider for Jellyfin has a privacy policy that clearly says they will use and share any interaction you have with the site including location and personal information. They almost certainly keep track of what is in your library. They don’t have a user account for you that they can use to track across IPs, but if your ISP keeps you on the same IP for long periods of time they have a good idea of what you are watching.
You can run Jellyfin without those plugins enabled but unless you want to build/collect manual nfo files to import that data you are going to have a subpar experience.
Same problem for the **arr stack since they need metadata as well. Some of which go to different providers so you are giving out that information to additional parties (i.e. Sonarr goes to TheTVDB which has a similar privacy policy).
You can configure the arrs to write out nfo metadata and have Jellyfin consume that so that at least you aren’t giving away your info to two external parties.
I’m going to shame people for using something that used to work well. This will help me by making me feel superior, and it will help others by shaming them. What a good idea I’ve had!
Do you really feel attacked by this post?
Attacked? No this post alone doesn’t make me feel attacked.
Though it’s about weekly that we see a post saying essentially “there’s no reason anyone should still be using Plex…”, or “jellyfin is superior to plex because of x and y”. And honestly, it’s tiring and it feels forced. Like if jellyfin were so perfect, would it really need this many posts propping it up?
Anyway, what bugged me about this post was the level of smugness. “Does Plex even count as self hosting?”, “is this really in the spirit of the community?”… God damn, that sounds like the least bearable person in the homeowners association.
If you can’t download the software and then run it on an isolated, air gapped network like on a desert island, then it isn’t self hosting.
… well, at some point any hobby grows to the point where purists show up.
There’s give and take with everything. Is it “self” hosted if you rely on Docker - a 3rd party with control over their own infrastructure? Or hosting it on a Debian OS? Is it really “private” if it’s connected to the internet at all?
Are you running the Plex Server application on some hardware so other devices can access the library? Hey, that’s self-hosting. That’s it.
I guess I’m not selfhosting at all, I use a power grid that I don’t control.
Have you mined the minerals though?
Or to put it in another way “to truly selfhost you need to start by creating the universe”.
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It’s not truly self hosting unless you start by creating the universe.
Edit: Balls, @gedfromgont@piefed.ca beat me to it. That’ll teach me to riff on Sagan quotes before I scroll down in the thread.
I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules for what is self hosting. Lots of people use cloudflare, which would fail both of your criteria as well.
At least with Plex/cloudflare/others, your overall control and privacy is better and more in your control than it would be with other non-self hosted alternatives.
Plex specifically is the worst of both though. You have to host all of your own data, and pay Plex for the privilege, but they maintain control of virtually everything you can do with it.
I specifically asked about the criteria from this community’s own sidebar because that’s what I’m interested, what is self hosting “in the spirit of this community?”
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like your reply ignores my actual question for discussion.
The description of this community is not a hard rule written in stone, and I would treat it as more of a vibe than a criteria.
If you want to take it literally, then yes, Plex doesn’t count, neither does cloudflare or wordpress. And many other proprietary systems commonly used by the self hosting community.
But I think the spirit of this community is a bit more loose, and there is room for the likes of Plex.
Plex used to be for the community. Their recent decisions have proven otherwise, they are seeking more of the almighty dollar so the imaginary money line will keep going up forever.
Sounds familiar.
So I don’t disagree with you on principle.
Now technically, Plex is self-hosted as you run the server program on your own hardware and can determine whether you want to use their authentication servers or roll your own internal thing.
If you are hosting software services (proprietary or not) on hardware you control, in a network you control, then you are self-hosting. What the service itself actually is is irrelevant.
As long as you’re running it on your own hardware, it sure is.
Privacy: Plex clearly records the metadata of what you watch.
Sure, that doesn’t really have anything to do with self-hosting, though.
Control: Plex has all of it.
They have no control at all over the contents of your media library. Even if they shut down everything, all your media is still there. They merely have control over a user interface that can be replaced.
They merely have control over a user interface that can be replaced.
If you have no control over it, that means plex isnt self hosted. The data is self hosted, but not the interface which is all that plex is at the end. You are basically just donating your hardware and data to a shitty company at that point.
It software hosted on hardware I physically control. That’s self-hosting.
I’m self hosting Microsoft Office right now
(I know you’re just joking)
☝️🤓, We typically don’t consider local-only applications as being hosted.
Hosted implies a server and the ability to operate remotely and to service multiple users.
Oh, good point. I’ll have to get some RDP CAL licenses or something.
Controlling the software is an integral part of the ethos of self hosting. Literally right in the first sentence of the wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting_(network)
Self-hosting is the practice of running and maintaining a website or service, as well as own servers for e-mail, IM, NTP and so on, using a private server, instead of using a service outside of the administrator’s own control. Self-hosting allows users to have more control over their data, privacy, and computing infrastructure, as well as potentially saving costs and improving skills.
instead of using a service outside of the administrator’s own control
Plex is outside of the administrators control.
Plex is outside of the administrators control.
That’s funny, because I’m pretty sure I installed it and I also have the power to uninstall it. Seems like control to me.
Anyway, I really have no interest in arguing with elitist takes that are objectively wrong.
If it’s just about installing a program and bring able to uninstall it, that would mean that if Netflix made a program you could install, you’re now self hosting Netflix.
Well, that depends on what type of software netflix would make available. If it’s just a client application, that doesn’t really qualify as self-hosting, since it’s a client and not a server. That’s basically just using an app on any device.
But if you could install the netflix server side software and connect it to your own media library and access it with your own local clients, then you’d be literally self-hosting netflix, indeed.
Ah, but I control if the client application is installed or not. And technically Netflix did allow downloading content for offline viewing - as long as you had an account (don’t know if they still do).
Now both the content and the application are on your hardware. Ergo by your logic, that would be self hosting.
For me, if I can’t use it when the internet is down it’s not self-hosting, so Plex certainly isn’t for me.
You can use plex when the internet is down.
Mine works when the internet is down. Why doesn’t yours?
Because they’re a silly goose who never learned to google
But the internet is down, so how can they google?
This can be done but you need to set the ip address ranges that don’t require auth when you can still get into the server(aka have internet). Then it works without internet fine.
Not really. I actually got rid of my Amazon Fire Stick because it didn’t work offline, but Plex did. I discovered this because my TV automatically showed the Plex shares as browsable media sources, which were being broadcast over DLNA.
That’s an option too but that’s mostly just DLNA and not really Plex (as the client).
What? You need internet to use plex? Can’t you just type in the local IP?
You can use Plex without the Internet. But it takes an extra two or three setup steps, so lots of people immediately jump to “wahhh my Plex isn’t working” when their Internet goes out. Not because it can’t work, but because they didn’t jump through the extra hoops to ensure it does.
The crowd that claims that setting up an elaborate VPN scheme is fine has a problem entering an IP range?
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This. I’ve had a couple of situations where we had an ISP outage and for whatever reason Plex Auth had expired and needed to connect to their servers to regain access to local media. The first time it happened I was pissed off. The second time it happened I installed Jellyfin and never looked back.
You can white list local IP address if you want them to work without auth. Just a config issue in your end.
This was for the server itself requiring re-authentication with Plex for the server claim token, rather than client auth. Some situation arose where the claim token was no longer valid, expired, unsure, and the server was locked out and local media inaccessible until ISP outage resolved and could login with Plex account (2 weeks due to fallen tree). Not ruling out a config issue. Was a couple of years ago now, so bit fuzzy on the details.
Jellyfin. Jellyfin. JELLYFIN. install it now? Is it the right fit? Fuck you who cares. I loaded Jellyfin and it worked for me so if it doesn’t work for you then you’re wrong!
Jellyfin!
Forget Emby or Kodi. JELLYFIN JELLYFINJELLUFIN!!!
Despite the downvotes this does seem pretty accurate for this community lately.
Yep, which is why I’m doing it. I tried reasonable debate but that didn’t work sooo……
thank you for not using /s and just taking the downvotes like champ!
I mean, at the end of the day the imaginary points aren’t good for anything. Thanks for the comment (seriously).
im out here wondering why anyone would hand anyone credit card information to watch already downloaded pirated content.
open source to me means open source, not open/paywall/ source.
i prefer my open source free with a lil jank. as god intended.
Because I’m lazy and want to be able to watch my stuff from anywhere, and let my friends access my library easily across all their devices.
Setting up Jellyfin for remote access is not trivial. Maybe for a lot of self hosting people it’s fairly simple, but it’s not nearly as simple as just downloading and running the Plex server software.
I paid for a lifetime account when it was 250, and I felt like it was worth it. At 750 like it is now, I probably would actually have considered figuring out Jellyfin. As with everything, it’s a money/time analysis and it’s less of my time to host Plex.
I have both specifically for this reason.
Plex is for my family who only need to know ‘login to your Plex account’, but I personally use Jellyfin because I’m on my VPN. I got the lifetime pass for under $100 ($80?) and it has saved me a lot of time by preventing technical issues that would need my personal attention.
Why would you bother with jellyfin locally if you have Plex also locally? It does nothing better.
The short answer is because it is open source.
I’m using some non-standard transcoding profiles, for example RIFE motion interpolation. I have some other server customizations so that it integrates with my home automation system a bit better.
I can’t customize Plex.
Exactly this. Jellyfin shouldn’t be available externally (even with a reverse proxy!) which means a personal VPN is your only realistic option for remote access. But that means you can only remotely access it on devices that can run a VPN. So grandma’s smart TV is probably disqualified.
Plex makes remote sharing much easier, so it’s what I use for friends and family. I got the lifetime pass like a decade ago, and I have gotten my money’s worth out of it a hundred times over. Luckily, Plex and Jellyfin will happily exist side-by-side, so there’s no real reason for me to choose one or the other.
It’s not just about watching content, but also about having it neatly organised with your watch history tracked in a easy to use interface. And on top of that, making it easily accessible to friends/family with minimum effort.
open source to me means open source, not open/paywall/ source.
It sure means that, but not quite sure why this is relevant. There is obviously a big overlap between self-hosters and foss enthusiast on lemmy, but for me they are unrelated.
I won’t make any claims about other users, but I am using Plex for 100% legally obtained media, mostly by means of ripping physical media that I still have on my shelf. So, not everybody is using it for pirated content.
Due to the DMCA by circumventing the copyright to rip your DVDs you are technically breaking the law. You would most definitely be considered a pirate.
Some people do not live in the US.
Surprise, DMCA exists in one form or another depending on what county you are from. Thanks to WIPO around 200 countries have similar laws.
https://www.wipo.int/en/web/about-wipo/member-states
Is your country on this list?
I guess that depends on your definition of “piracy”… is it “breaking the law” or is it “stealing”?
In any case, the point I was making is that some people use Plex with non-stolen media. I mostly see assumptions that it’s only used for stolen media, so I wanted to offer a counter-example.
Piracy is infringing on copyright. Ripping DVDs is most definitely consider a form of piracy. Although without sharing it, I think a jury could see it as non-infringing personally.
I do agree there is a huge difference between ripping media and downloading/sharing it as far as civil liability goes.
I take some umbrage with calling either ripping or downloading stealing though as it does not deprive the owner of their property. The correct term would be commercial copyright infringement.
Technically recording TV on VHS is piracy, but in practice no one is getting sued for it.
No it isn’t
To this point Congress was ready to eliminate the VHS home taping technology. Believe it or not Mr. Rogers came in to save the VHS from regulation death because he believed parents could record shows to watch with their children.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29686/how-mister-rogers-saved-vcr
Notable quotes
“The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” - Jack Velanti
“I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the ‘Neighborhood’ off-the-air … they then become much more active in the programming of their family’s television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been ‘You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions’ … I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.” - Mr. Rogers
If by “your definition of piracy” you mean your country’s laws surrounding it, then in the USA you would still be breaking the law. The FBI anti-piracy warning that they put at the beginning of movies to warning you about the anti-piracy laws specifies that the unauthorized reproduction OR distribution of copyrighted works is illegal.
I’ve got no moral qualms about the way I’m handling things, nor am I judging anybody for the way they handle things. My comment was simply meant to show that not everybody is using Plex for stolen media.
Good for you. Now, about those torrents…
Not sure if you’re implying that I torrent my media… but just to be clear I don’t torrent.
Nope, I was talking about me.
By definition, you are a pirate for ripping your purchased physical media! One can only imagine the depravity of then hosting that content for others! Straight to jail!
Good for you. Now, about those torrents…
