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I am curious as to why people thing Plex is self hosting if Plex can change how your server functions? I have never personally considered it self hosting but do others still think it is?
Yes. It’s running on my server. That I host.
And you fully control the service?
Depends on how you use it. Doubtful anyone here has the Plex devs on payroll… Not any other self-hostable softwares devs … updates will come.
Because you are hosting the server software on your own hardware. That’s literally self-hosting. Plex provides a way to remotely access your server through their own network as well, which is optional.
On a side note: you can remotely access any service running on home network via Tailscale[1] / Cloudflare Tunnel. Your services are never exposed on Internet. Moreover, you don’t need to rely on Plex for that.
[1] https://tailscale.com/ [2] https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/connections/connect-networks/
Tailscale is going public, so I don’t really trust them anymore. I used Cloudflare tunnels for a while, but I strongly dislike being dependent on them for accessing my own network, and I don’t like how they recently clamped down on “anti-piracy”. There are some legitimate sites I still can’t access (dirtbike parts and whatnot) because Cloudflare straight up blocks access to them.
Even if the source code is open?
Android is open source and look what Google is trying to do with that.
Even though there are some cloud services like remote server management, proxies, and 3rd party integration, I do actually have to run the software myself on my hardware. Hence, self hosted.
By your logic the *arr suite isn’t self hosted either since they rely on metadata cache servers.
In fact Jellyfin relies on external services for their metadata too!
Plex is self hosting, the auth is not.
So is the auth needed to set up your plex in the first place? It has been forever sence I used it.
no, the auth to use it at all … internet goes down and you can’t watch your own movies on your own network. peak self hosting.
You can add IPs that are allowed to use it without auth. The software itself is running on your own server.
That’s simply not true. You can just set your local ip range as unauthenticated and use it to your hearts content without an internet connection.
Ok that is good to hear!
why stop there! let’s do the same for all the “self-host” projects that use CDNs or remotely hosted resources.
it’s not self-hosted unless it’s 100% hosted locally.
Right, he who does not rely on someone elses DNS-server shall throw the first stone!
How is that any different than any other software package? Unless you’re coding it yourself, things can be changed without your permission.
Jellyfin I don’t have to update if I don’t want to. Jellyfin can’t force me to update by taking a function I currently have away or force my to pay to keep using it the way I currently am. With open code I can fork it and keep it at the version I want if I choose.
At least for now. Jellyfin was spawned from Emby who also decided to go closed source at one point. You’re still at the whim of strangers and what they want to do with the product they developed.
Regardless, the debate isn’t about “Plex vs Emby,” it’s whether “Plex is self-hosting” or not.