Plex Media Server
Ranked 5 of 5 media servers by recommenders
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.
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.
28 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 13
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Automatic metadata, seamless experience
“Excellent automatic metadata determination.”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Plex's 200% Lifetime Pass price hike tries forcing users to another subscription” “It's a very seamless experience.”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “State of the Fin 2026-01-06 – Jellyfin”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Security flaws and bugs
“Plex trusts anything from loopback, so any SSRF is effectively an auth bypass.”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “Plex Media Server Unauth RCE Exploit” “Plex Media Server has had a relatively small but consequential CVE history.”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop a cryptominer” “Some of those individual bugs are egregious.”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “Plex Media Server Unauth RCE Exploit” Tricky setup and settings
“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”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Jellyfin 12.0” “it does need some tech literacy to setup properly”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin” Slow transcoding and performance
“My Plex media server is ancient and it really struggles if it has to do any kind of transcoding.”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “FFmpeg-over-IP – Connect to remote FFmpeg servers” “For some reason, out of the box this was dog slow.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too”
Other media servers people recommend
The four most recommended other media servers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jellyfin | 385 | 133 | 74% | 13 | 1 yr28 owners | Approved |
| Plex | 219 | 218 | 50% | 13 | 10 yrs42 owners | — |
| Emby | 20 | 15 | 57% | 9 | — | — |
| Audiobookshelf | 17 | 1 | 94% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Plex Media ServerThis page | 15 | 13 | 54% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
26 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Plex Media Server has had a relatively small but consequential CVE history.”
“they look like actively made misguided choices”
“it's a questionable/clunky implementation but possible”
“I completely missed their "please upgrade now" email on Sep 1st and was running a 13 month old version.”
“It is designed to be on the network so that many different invited users can all log in and access your media.”
“their Synology package doesn't auto update itself”
“it's authenticated, so there's nothing terrifying about exposing it”
“Plex trusts anything from loopback, so any SSRF is effectively an auth bypass.”
“Some of those individual bugs are egregious.”
“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”
“For now, I am happy on plex/plexamp.”
“I currently have 10Tb of 1080p content and rescans takes a few seconds.”
“it does need some tech literacy to setup properly”
“I probably would. Or just go for the cheaper route of paying them monthly/yearly”
“I bought a NAS instead and start running a plex server.”
“Excellent automatic metadata determination.”
“discovered that plex won't even run now without a pass”
“back when Plex supported plugins all your plugin had to do was eventually give it a link to a video / stream”
“My Plex media server is ancient and it really struggles if it has to do any kind of transcoding.”
“For some reason, out of the box this was dog slow.”
“It's a very seamless experience.”
“Plex has the weakness of requiring a first time online auth because they didnt implement a local ldap/oauth/sso pathway”
“There's no reason IMO for that to be necessary.”
“Only if you want it to. Your local Plex server is always available on port 32400”
“I use it pretty heavily as a local plex server for music and videos”
“backed by Plex Media Server, is the pinnacle of music discovery”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.