# Plex Media Server 15 Hacker News commenters recommended Plex Media Server and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Lets you stream your own music and video to any device, with automatic metadata and easy sharing with invited users. Critics cite security flaws and a history of bugs. ## Why people recommend it - Automatic metadata, seamless experience (2 comments): "Excellent automatic metadata determination." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48200549)) "It's a very seamless experience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46522327)) ## What people warn about - Security flaws and bugs (3 comments): "Plex trusts anything from loopback, so any SSRF is effectively an auth bypass." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50128097)) "Plex Media Server has had a relatively small but consequential CVE history." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50167631)) "Some of those individual bugs are egregious." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50127482)) - Tricky setup and settings (2 comments): "they do not make this an easy setting to change! I have set this multiple times according to docs, and it worked only once ever" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49606972)) "it does need some tech literacy to setup properly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49030987)) - Slow transcoding and performance (2 comments): "My Plex media server is ancient and it really struggles if it has to do any kind of transcoding." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47332259)) "For some reason, out of the box this was dog slow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46576584)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Jellyfin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jellyfin.md): 385 recommend - [Plex](https://hackerapproved.com/p/plex.md): 219 recommend - [Emby](https://hackerapproved.com/p/emby.md): 20 recommend - [Audiobookshelf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/audiobookshelf.md): 17 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://watch.plex.tv/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Plex Media Server", https://hackerapproved.com/p/plex-media-server/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).