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?
You must log in or register to comment.
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.
Mine works when the internet is down. Why doesn’t yours?
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.
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.
Yes. Ask another question, the one we’re all aching to respond 😜
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Achtually, if the lights dim less power to him.
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.
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.
Also make sure you don’t have a loose neutral somewhere 😬
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
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.
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.
I think Plesk is still self-hosting. Nowhere it says that self host MUST be open source or in general, free stuff. Self hosting is host on your premises, or actually host yourself (hosting on a VPS IMHO is still selfhost).
As for Plex, i discarded it from the day 0 and went with Jellyfin directly, never looked back and i am 100% happy with my choice. I would NOT consider something like Plex (with it’s enshittification, pricing and overall shady approaches in general) as viable for my setup. But, it’s still self-host since you host your media and your service.
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?
I understand where you’re coming from but, to me, self hosting is an ethos, not a checklist. If self hosting has to be void of a commercial entity then my services at home that are available externally aren’t self hosted since I have to rely on my ISP for that to work. And all of the electricity for my servers comes from a commercial company so those aren’t self hosted. And using a public domain isn’t self hosting.
That’s a bs comparison. You cannot login tonplonplex if they are down well you can but only locally and it isn’t the default. Also if Plex disappears yourself hosted instance is finished.
… 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”.
deleted by creator
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.
Just as much as Tailscale is self hosting. Tailscale is probably more concerning from a security point of view.
What exactly is concerning about Tailscale’s security?
I’m new to self-hosting and Tailscale was the easiest/fastest way I could get to access my stuff externally. I’m currently learning about the alternatives.
Like all VPN-like things, some amount of data has to flow through their system. But almost everything is encrypted nowadays so it’s generally not too big of a worry.
For Tailscale though, they see way less. They see your IP during device setup, and maybe during use if things are making it hard for them to enable a direct connection. Depending on your DNS setup, they may see some of your DNS requests.
Its also really easy to setup your own headscale sever and then nothing goes to them at all. I recommend a small VPS for that, rather than running it on your home internet connection.
Tailscale controls the routing, thus the traffic. They control which keys get trusted. They most of the time distribute and develop the software.
It would be quite easy for them to start snooping on traffic, while on the internet anything basically is additional encrypted, that would not apply so broadly to the traffic that get sent via tailscale especially the self hosted crowd, a lot of that traffic would be http and unencrypted.
To me, Tailscale is not selfhosted at all. That’s why headscale exists.
Just as much as Tailscale is self hosting.
So not at all?
Tailscale is just a Service. Not sure how you could even think calling Tailscale self hosting.
It’s why I also consider cloudflare against the spirit of the community but I’m not going to give anyone hell over doing things how they want to with their own stuff. Freedom to do things as we’d like is part of the reason why we’re all here, right?
Freedom to do things as we’d like is part of the reason why we’re all here, right?
100% and the mods are also pretty good about removing off topic posts. My question is about understanding what this community thinks and where that line to what is off topic is. There are certainly things you can do with a server at home that would be off topic for this community, right?
There are certainly things you can do with a server at home that would be off topic for this community, right?
I don’t want to hear about hosting CSM but anything else is fair game imo
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.
when you are hosting something that is entirely dependent on a commercial entity to function
Eh, you can still get in with them down by hitting the local server, so I don’t think this is entirely accurate.
Would I recommend it? No, I have a lifetime pass since the early days of it being offered and I just use JF. I recommend Jellyfin.
But I’m also not going to look down on folks who dont want to deal with auth or are unsure when it comes to opening a port on a firewall, access is something Plex makes easy and I get that.
So is it self-hosting? If they are running the server, no matter if its local, a vps, whatever, then I’d say yes. Whether or not it meets with my personal ideals are irrelevant.
Plex is kind of a weird hybrid where it is self hosted but a part of the backend infrastructure is not. For my use this is advantageous because it simplifies the service for my less technically inclined family members that would struggle with using something like jellyfin.
I look at it as a comfortable middle ground to get people off Netflix and other services for now but I don’t have much faith that it will last forever with what plex is doing as a company recently.
