It's an approach that's well-suited to the mission – this is an app for relaxation and entertainment, after all. Plex's just seems a bit cleaner and tidier, an easy-to-use media center for fans of Apple, Roku, and other just-works operating systems. The difference is further evident in the user interfaces. Tinkering around with the Terminal is something that might turn off casual users. None of the steps are particularly hard, but they definitely ask more of a user than Plex's server, which you pretty much just download and run.

For instance, take a look at this set of instructions for installing an Emby server on a Mac: A Mac user's worst nightmare Plex is deliberately designed to be as simple as possible, which (as we'll mention) limits its higher-level functionality, but also makes it a breeze to set up.īy contrast, the Emby setup process is a little more intensive. The most striking advantage that Plex has over Emby is in user experience and ease of setup.

But there are pros and cons to using one or the other, and we're here to take a look at those. They're both free with paid tiers, they're both client-server programs, and they've even both got cool logos. There are a ton of similarities between Plex and Emby. With the Emby app on your other computer, phone, tablet, streaming box, or any other device, you can stream all of the media files that you have on your server. you download a program on your computer, set up a server, add your local media, and then install apps on other devices. Like Plex, Emby has a server-client setup. But what about Emby, a competitor app that sets out to do pretty much the exact same thing as Plex? In that case, the differences were pretty clear. In the past, we've broken down the differences between Plex and Kodi – two of the most popular media center apps on the market today. Cord cutters now have a range of solid options for organizing and viewing their media files or streaming video, and that's certainly for the best. The media center app wars are in full swing these days, and we couldn't be happier about it.

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