Plex's Lifetime Pass is (basically) dead. Here's how to switch to Jellyfin.
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Free software is the lifeblood of computing. That's not to say that paid software isn't important or isn't worth it... but when it comes right down to it? Pretty much every piece of proprietary software is just a frontend for open source (or, at worst, just some closed-source glue holding some free stuff together).<br>If you self-host your own media collection (like some kinda nerd) then chances are high you've heard of Plex.<br>Plex is a piece of paid software that helps you manage and stream your media (movies, TV, music, etc.). It essentially lets you create your own, personal Netflix.<br>Why am I talking about Plex? After all, it's proprietary software. It's paid software. Well, today, May 19th 2026, they decided to increase their lifetime license fee by 200%.<br>That's not a joke.<br>Starting July 1st, 2026, the Lifetime Plex Pass fee will increase from a one-time payment of $250 to a one-time charge of $750.<br>Why? According to their announcement post, quote:<br>This adjustment ensures that the price of a Lifetime Plex Pass continues to more accurately reflect its true value<br>🤑<br>For context, they also offer a monthly ($6.99) and annual ($69.99) "Plex Pass" so that you can manage your own media.
So they say this price jump is reflective of the value of Plex. Yet this comes at a time where the app focuses less and less on serving you your own content and has started, instead, emphasized other people's content.<br>For example, if you go to their website (plex.tv), it shows you movies like "Michael," "The Devil Wears Prada 2," and "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie." Cool. But I don't want to stream movies from someone else's computer. I want to watch the movies I sourced second hand at thrift stores for next-to-nothing and ripped with my own, two hands. So if it's not actually a better value proposition, what is it?<br>In their announcement post, they said the quiet part out loud:<br>"We've considered eliminating the Lifetime Plex Pass in the past"<br>Got it. They don't want paying customers. They want to be the landlords of your content and they want you to pay them rent.<br>Armed with that knowledge, don't rush to upgrade out of their rental tiers for a lifetime pass before the price jumps 200%.<br>No. It's time to switch to Jellyfin...
Meet Jellyfin<br>Source: jellyfin.orgIt's basically Plex but Free and Open Source. It's a beast. It's the best. I love it.<br>It has all the basic functionality. You put it on your server (or NAS), point it to your collection of media, and start streaming your own content.<br>It might not have all the whizzbang features or the whirligig snap, crackle, and pop of Plex.<br>But it is 100% free and open source. Meaning no lifetime fee... nor any rental tax to access your own goddamn media files.<br>Again, it's very similar to Plex. You should feel mostly at home making the switch. Though I will call out that a few comfort features – automatic subtitle scraping, intro detection, etc. – don't come standard with the Jellyfin experience. They might need some TLC on your part to get working...
Making The Switch<br>Making the switch is pretty simple, especially if you set up Plex yourself. This article is going to make two assumptions:<br>You are installing Jellyfin on a Linux machine.<br>You have Docker installed.<br>So in just a few steps, we'll get your Jellyfin up and running and your Plex data synchronized.
Step 1 – Install Jellyfin<br>To get set up with Jellyfin, I highly recommend using Docker Compose. It makes setup trivial!<br>First, let's switch to our home directory:<br>cd<br>We're going to create a new directory by running the command:<br>mkdir jellyfin<br>Next, we'll navigate into the jellyfin directory:<br>cd jellyfin<br>Now, let's use nano to create and edit the docker-compose.yml file. We'll put the following into that file:<br>services:<br>jellyfin:<br>image: jellyfin/jellyfin<br>container_name: jellyfin<br>ports:<br>- 8096:8096/tcp<br>- 7359:7359/udp<br>volumes:<br>- ./config:/config<br>- ./cache:/cache<br>- type: bind<br>source: /path/to/media<br>target: /media<br>restart: 'unless-stopped'<br># Optional - alternative address used for autodiscovery<br>environment:<br>- JELLYFIN_PublishedServerUrl=http://example.com<br># Optional - may be necessary for docker healthcheck to pass if running in host network mode<br>extra_hosts:<br>- 'host.docker.internal:host-gateway'
If you're using a Linux terminal emulator and you've copied the above to your clipboard, you can press CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste. If you're using Powershell on Windows, you can right click to paste... for some reason.
Of note here, you'll want to edit the values in the volume: section.<br>Set the /path/to/media/ to the location where you have your media files.<br>Also, if you plan on accessing your Jellyfin through a domain name, you'll want to edit the JELLYFIN_PublishedServerUrl=https://example.com to reflect...