I want to unlock the ability to view content on my mobile device. I can do that with a one-time purchase (payed with google opinion rewards) or with a subscription. I want to unlock the ability for my entire family though, across multiple devices. Do I have to pay the “one-time payment” for every device? If so, the plex subscription might be worth it. Is there any other major benefit to having a plex subscription?
My main bone to pick with Plex is that I believe that free and open source software should be gratis (free as in beer). You’re right about the authentication though. I have mine set up with a simple user name and password over http. I rely on the VPN to limit access to the network through a forwarded port. I don’t really like the idea of authentication being done on someone else’s machine for privacy reasons, which is why I choose jellyfin that runs on my local machine. I’m not currently sharing it, and if I did I would change some of my security practices.
If you really need public remote access and you can set up jellyfin, it’s not much more difficult to set up authelia or LDAP with a reverse proxy and valid certs. I use tailscale and just leave simple auth with jellyfin since it’s only myself and family accessing. I used to run Plex for the offloading of authentication to them but I’m with ya, FOSS should be free.