Plex is asking for money now when you want to stream media remotely
Plex has been a fan-favorite solution for streaming media for years. It is relatively easy to set up, especially if a remote media server is added to the setup. Up until now, accessing a Plex media server remotely was free. This was a great option for users who were travelling and wanted to access their home server while abroad, or for sharing a server.
Plex announced today that the free ride will be over, at least for users of the service who want to access media remotely.
This changes: From next week onward, Plex requires either a Remote Watch Pass or a Plex Pass to stream remotely to the company's Roku app. Starting in 2026, the change will come to all Plex TV apps on all platforms and any third-party client that is using the Plex APIs for remote streaming.
Plex explains the two options in a post on the official forum:
- Remote Watch Pass - Available for 20 Euros per year (about 23 Dollars), it is designed specifically for streaming media remotely using Plex.
- Plex Pass - Customers may upgrade their account to a Plex Pass subscription, which is available for about 60 Euros per year (about 70 Dollars), but is discounted right now. It includes premium features, such as skip intro and credits, hardware transcoding and more.
In other words, Plex created a new subscription plan for users who -- very soon -- cannot use the application's remote streaming functionality anymore, because Plex turned it off for them.
Plex users who do not want to subscribe to the service just to retain access to a feature that they used for free before could check out alternatives to Plex.
Here is a short selection:
- Jellyfin: free and open source, supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and does not limit remote access.
- Kodi: another free and open source solution that also supports the desktop systems as well as Android, Fire TV and Raspberry Pie. However, getting remote media servers to work with the solution is complicated.
Have another alternative that you suggest others may replace Plex with? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
how do you get sound forge, on a 25 inch i mac. — to edit, films,pix, —ect, — easy ?– im old 94—?
LOL what a joke. I didn’t know Plex was still around. Jellyfin has been great alternative 5 years now.
I’ve used Plex for several years. I bought the PlexPass on a Black Friday sale a few years back for $70. Even at the current 40% off price, it’s still a good deal. Plex has been a great app and paying a few bucks towards it seems reasonable.
The transcoding and remote streaming options are worth it. Yes, I could do this with Tailscale or something else. But Plex just works. My siblings all over the country access my server.
Do you work for Flex, or do you shill for free?
Jellyfin is the future and has been for a while as far as I am concerned.
Plex has been making mistake after mistake in recent years so I am not too surprised by this at all.
I believe sumsung uses its own OS (Tizen) which means you are out of luck there when it comes to kodi as far as I know but I believe you can use Jellyfin. I personally prefer using external hardware myself. The Nvidia shield pro although it is old (2019) still holds its own, runs under the androidtv OS, has good support (Nvidia still releases updates for it from time to time) and has its own 4k upscale built in. I wish nvidia would release a new version but as far as the specs are concerned its still head and shoulders above it’s peers.
Sideloading is relatively easy to achieve on the Shield and there are excellent launchers for them too. Of course you can install plex, jellyfin, emby, kodi, etc on it and then add an external drive to it and/or connect it to a NAS for all your local files too if you so desire.
Jellyfin might be the way for you to go if you have to @Tachy
We use plex, and we love the part we use.
Hopefully, since our server is “Not available outside your network” this change won’t affect us.
The #1 reason we use plex is because our TV will upscale 720p content to 4k when we use an app on the TV to view it and it does a good job of it.
Does Samsung offer a Kodi app?
Kodi isn’t available currently on Samsung TV but you can use it with any Android Firestick or box.