Alternatives to Plex: an overview of the best media centres

Media centres are the perfect place to store collections of images, music, and videos that people create on their computers, smartphones, or other devices. Their primary function is to store this media, such as your latest vacation photos or your favorite film. However, you may find your patience being tested if you start searching for a particular file, only to realise that nothing is organised properly.

If you’re looking for a suitable management platform for your media files, you will no doubt come across Plex eventually. Launched as a freeware project in 2007, Plex has an impressive range of features and is undoubtedly one of the best media centres of all time. Thanks to various streaming portals and services like Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, or Vevo, Plex users can play online content directly through their media centre interface. However, Plex does have some formidable alternatives.

The primary function of a media centre is to organise all media files (audio, video, and image) on the selected computer system in a clearly arranged format. The user interface should make it easy for you to find and play back the content you want.

Plex alternatives (as well as Plex itself) should not just allow playback on the original device, but should also be able to play through external devices. Streaming your own media content on a TV should be a standard feature, which is why most media centre interfaces are also designed to be used with smart TVs.

The best Plex alternatives should also be able to stream video and information services. Of course, your personal interests are most important here: Netflix and YouTube are more widely supported than other services because of their popularity. However, if you are not interested in these mainstream platforms, streaming links will be irrelevant to you as a user. It is therefore advisable to check the additional features in advance (often available as optional add-ons) that can be used as a respectable alternative to Plex. It is also important that the selected media management option allows multiple devices to access the library at the same time. If you want to enjoy a film while a flatmate or a family member is streaming music, your chosen Plex alternative must always be usable by several people at the same time.

In addition to the range of functions, cost and compatibility play an important role when it comes to choosing the best media centre. The latter does not just deal with which systems the media centre should be created on, it is also about what platforms you can access the media centre from. You should also consider how up to date the Plex alternative is when making your decision: since many media centres are interconnected with web services, timely updates to close security holes are particularly important.

To make finding a suitable Plex alternative easier, here are some interesting examples of the best media centres and a guide to their advantages and disadvantages.

Mezzmo is very easy to set up: after installing the program, it automatically searches and organises all the films, video clips, music, photos, and stored subtitles saved on the system being used. These files can subsequently be played back on all devices in the network that support UPnP or DNLA, or that have the app installed (Android only) – Mezzmo transcodes the media content in real time to ensure optimal streaming quality. You can access the media collection simultaneously with multiple devices at any time, so that sharing the media centre is no problem. If you are having technical problems with Mezzmo, you can contact Conceiva with a ticket or through the user forum.

MediaPortal is an open source application and therefore benefits enormously from collaborating with the community: plugins developed as a supplement that provide additional functions that can be installed and integrated just as easily as skins to give the user interface a new appearance. This Plex alternative is only available for Windows and there are no separate apps for smartphones, tablets, or smart TVs – but there are extensions that allow remote access to your MediaPortal library from these same devices. All skins and plugins are available at any time from the official download page.

Kodi delivers all the central features of a good media centre: you can organise all your media content easily and play it back through the user interface, which supports a variety of audio, video, and image formats. Implementing new formats and technologies (like video acceleration) is handled by the Kodi team in real time. The Plex alternative automatically retrieves metadata from the web to provide additional information about archived content. Kodi’s greatest strength, however, is that the software is platform independent. There are not only installation packages for Windows, Linux, and macOS, but also for Android, iOS, and Raspberry-Pi. Remote control apps for iOS and Android complete the range of options.

By integrating various streaming providers, Stremio not only provides an excellent overview of when and where content is available, but also offers a good price comparison. In terms of compatibility, the open source platform is just as well set up as Kodi: desktop versions for Windows, macOS, and Linux are available, as well as free apps for Android and iOS. Additionally, the developer plans to release a web application for the Plex alternative, which will then allow them to manage and access their own library as well as the existing clients for desktop PCs and mobile devices.

The media centre is regularly updated by the developer team. Recent updates are often available as a beta version for download – however, users must expect that the software may not always work properly in these pre-releases. The Plex alternative has an optional web browser interface and is expandable with plugins. This can be used, for example, to integrate a link to SoundCloud. Further information on the development status and useful links to interesting Universal Media Server websites can be found in the official directory for the project on Github Github.

If you start the Emby server after installation, the web dashboard will automatically open, allowing you to configure all the necessary settings for your personal media server. This is not just about filling the library, but also about finding the perfect setup for transcoding the content. It is also possible to create different user profiles, including access authorisations. This way you can ensure that adult content is not accessible to children, for example. If you subscribe to the monthly Emby Premiere package, you can use numerous additional features like cloud and folder synchronisation, a cover configurator, and a backup function. In addition, you can stream videos and music to individual devices, as well as save them when you take out a subscription so that they can be played without a network connection.

TVersity combines your personal media collection with useful web content like free video streams, RSS feeds, or podcasts that can be retrieved from the client on the chosen device. If you’re looking for a specific file, you’ll benefit from the media centre’s outstanding performance, which is sure to impress even large libraries with more than 100.000 entries. A large part of their fast, uncomplicated file retrieval system is the powerful search mask and integrated cache function, which caches transcoded content. The Plex alternative has a REST API that allows you to integrate the media centre into other tools easily.

Plex is one of the most popular applications for organizing your own multimedia collection on PCs, smartphones, and other devices, but there are a number of good alternatives that don’t have to hide behind the mainstream media centres when it comes to functionality and streaming quality. This article explains exactly what characterises software that manages and plays back audio, video, and image files, and what Plex alternatives are available.