Plex ending support for Watch Together

I use this all the time on my Jellyfin server.

I just moved to jellyfin instead of using Plex on my NAS, and I'm so glad that I did.
- Bluh. I installed both but went with plex because it was a super easy setup. I'll take another look at jellyfin.
  
  Also question: can I access stuff remotely via phone like with the plex app without any additional configuration?

jellyfin has this :)

I have been using Jellyfin for over a year and have never seen this. I’ll have to look later! What client do you use?
- SyncPlay.
  
  It's a people icon in the top right in most clients that support it.
  
  Users can set up a group, and other users can then see and join that group. Any media played in the group is played on all clients in the group.
Oh wow, I thought I had to use syncplay once I build my server, but thats handy
- To be fair, you will still be using Syncplay, cause thats how Jellyfin do. Just wish it would work with regular Syncplay clients. or if it does I havent figured out how.
I've tried it a couple times and it's never worked for me. It's the only thing keeping me on Plex. I couldn't find much about this online as apparently not many people watch stuff with other people online???

Stop using proprietary software. It will always betray you, sooner or later.

That goes double when a serviceable Free Software alternative exists and you lose little by switching.

That just sounds like use whatever works best at the time and switch as needed. Plex worked well for me for many years. But now it looks like the alternatives have caught up or beat it. That doesn't mean the years I've enjoyed it are somehow erased.

What is the „new experience“? Usually that means enshittification.

It usually comes with a price "update"
There is a beta, you can try it, it looks nice

Genuinely surprised how people still stick with Plex at this point.

It's way easier to setup and way easier to get people who are not into tech to use it

Well... Was
- Still is by a landslide. Especially when you want to share you stuff with other people
- I get the platform and ease of use aspect for sure. It just seems Plex has killed much of the "spirit" of what drives people towards self-hosted media consumption. Those benefits of Plex have waned so much in recent years.

if you aren't trying to justify your lifetime subscription what are you even doing with Plex?

Lifetime plex sub here: Downloads for Offline viewing.

Please Jellyfin, that feature will allow me to transition the whole family away from Plex.

Don’t care that plex is paid for, I’d rather exclusively run Jellyfin instead of both just so others in the household can get their offline video fix while traveling.
- it let's you download. you're talking about playback in app, right?
I mean it all cones down to what features you use. For example, my kids live off smart collections, and in Plex you can pin them right to the home screen, and that experience is unified across TVs and tablets. You can't do that yet in Jellyfin yet.

I would absolutely switch if I didn't have kids though. I already tried. So many complaints and we went back to Plex. One day I will switch though when Plex goes belly up or gets bought its an inevitability.
- You can run both simultaneously. I have Plex, Jellyfin and an OSMC client (via NFS) running out of the same library.
  
  I use Plex because it's easier for my various family members to use on their strange devices and TVs. They can't remember an e-mail and password but a jellyfin URL may as well be eldritch incantations to hear them talk about it.
I host a Plex server and only use it to stream video. I don't use any other features built into Plex. I've never had a an issue that I haven't caused myself, and have a dozen people that share my library remotely.

I haven't read about specifics in a long time, but I thought at one point jellyfin didn't support remote streaming, which immediately makes in not an option. At this point it will take something more significant to get me to take the hours required to migrate everything out of Plex to a different solution, but are there any drop dead reasons why I should move now other than not being able to use the watch together feature that I've never used, although I disappointed they removed it, because it's a nice feature?
- Jellyfin just does everything I need, and has done for a long time, so I find it funny when all I ever hear about Plex is how it's constantly getting worse like that wasn't always going to happen with a closed source platform.
  
  if it still works for you I wouldn't drop everything and migrate; but the day is coming.
- I spun up Jellyfin recently just out of curiosity and setup wasn’t difficult at all. You can point it at the exact same library folders that Plex uses, so there’s not really much to migrate. Jellyfin will take time to do its media processing on the first library import, but that doesn’t require anything but patience while it does its thing.
  
  It definitely supports remote streaming - one of my friends in another state was able to successfully sign in and watch something.
  
  Jellyfin’s support for plugins is nice as well - paired with JFA-GO, user account management is a breeze.
  
  The main drawback it still seems to need work on is streaming support on a larger variety of devices, which is where you’d be likely to still run into issues since you share your library with others. A few of my friends have devices that don’t have Jellyfin apps, and it’s the only reason I haven’t transitioned everything off of Plex. I don’t recall exactly what devices they were using that didn’t work, but I’m pretty sure at least one or two were game consoles.
Well, luckily I don't have a lifetime subscription with em...
- it's the only reason I can see that anyone still uses it.

Ah FFS, I use that all the time with my wife while we're an ocean apart.

still works through the browser client
- Thanks I'll make sure she switches to loading it up in Firefox.

Have you heard of our lord and savior https://fmhy.pages.dev/ ?

It sucks 😞 I use the feature a lot. Luckily you can still use it for the foreseeable future in the web app... But I don't really use the watch together feature on the web app when I use it. They've sent an e-mail which is more confusing. They mentioned the watch together feature was quickly implemented on the current version. (Was it because of COVID? I don't remember) So it means the feature should be relatively straightforward to implement in the new version? Right? Especially since they mention they spent two years rewriting their apps "from the ground up" to enable them " to bring new features to you more efficiently, across more platforms, with much higher quality than ever before"

Also if they developed it from the ground up they could have taken into account the watch together feature to rewrite as well. They either did not want to implement it from the start. Or noticed it wasn't compatible with the new tech they wanted to use in the new versions.

The mail

It was the year 2020. Life had gotten very different, very fast. Then, at the request of a fan named Joe, Plex Labs quickly put in some long hours creating a way for the world to watch together when circumstances kept us apart. It wasn’t perfect, but this experimental feature created human connection in a time when we needed it most. Now, five years later, we are nearing the official release of our new Plex experience that will bring us closer together than ever before. We’ve spent two years rewriting our apps from the ground up to boost our development speed, which should enable us to bring new features to you more efficiently, across more platforms, with much higher quality than ever before. However, this release also means ending support for some features that we’ve grown to love, like Watch Together. Though support for Watch Together will not be available in the new Plex experience for most devices, you can still continue to use the feature in our web app for the foreseeable future. And because we’ve seen your love and tremendous response to this feature, we don’t preclude the possibility of offering similar functionality again in the future, using new tooling. We know that this decision will impact many of you, and we appreciate your support and understanding. Sincerely, Your Friends at Plex

Would be easier to give "support and understanding" if they actually explained why they didn't reimplement it in the new "experience".

It was destined to fail. Ever try to add friends on Plex? It’s a shitshow just to find where in the UI to add a friend or accept a request. And you can’t use Watch Together until everyone watching is friends with everyone.

It crashes like crazy anyway. I don’t think it’s worked well for me in over a year.

Never used it

So what's the alternative? Jellyfin?

They already took out the option to watch playlists together like six months ago.

People do tend to feel frustrated when announcements like this one come out, and I'm sure it was a hard decision for the dev team, but Plex really still just works so well for me. They do a great job.

I'm sure someday a better platform might come along, and when it does I will give it a try, but for me it just wasn't jellyfin. Plex 4 ~~lyfe~~ now.