6 Best Plex Alternatives for Home Media Streaming

Cassie 11/11/2025

CleverGet All-In-One

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While Plex media server enables you to freely organize, stream and share your local media libraries like movies, music, photos, TV shows, etc., there are still a few drawbacks such as limited free features, high requirements upon hardware and transcoding, limited customizability, etc. That are the reasons many people have been looking for Plex alternatives. In this post, we would like to share some best Plex alternatives with you, and help you make better use of your local media servers.

6 Best Plex Alternatives for Home Media Streaming

Now, let’s take a look at the list of alternatives to Plex media server below. Some of these options are free Plex alternatives, while others are paid Plex alternatives. You could freely choose the one that meets your budget.

1. Kodi

Kodi, previously known as XBMC, is an open-source and free Plex alternative to work as a digital media server hub for you to organize and play your media files from various devices. This Plex alternative could organize, play and manage files including movies, TV shows, music, and photos on your computers, smartphones, tablets, and dedicated media players. However, it should be noted that Kodi is not a server-client app, which allows you to access your digital media libraries remotely from various other devices.

2. Jellyfin

Exactly like Plex media server, Jellyfin is one of the best Plex alternatives. It is also an open-source and free Plex alternative, which works exactly like Plex media server to let you organize, play and stream your digital media library including photos, music, videos (movies and shows) and more to any supported device. It creates a media server center on your computer, and then make your digital media library accessible from various supported devices like smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, etc.

3. Universal Media Server

As another free Plex alternative, Universal Media Sever, also known as UMS in short, is a DLNA, UPnP and HTP/S media server, which allows you to organize your music, photos and videos on your computer and then stream them to supported devices on the same local network. It could stream media files and transcode them in real-time automatically for unlimited playback on receiving devices by using FFmpeg and MEncoder.

4. Emby

Emby is another wonderful Plex alternative to help you organize and stream digital media contents from the media server end (a computer or NAS) to client ends (smartphones, TVs, tablets, etc.) via the Emby app. Similar to Universal Media Server, Emby also could automatically convert media files for smooth playback on various media players and devices. It even supports live TV and DVR features, which are not frequently available from other media servers.

5. Serviio

Also a free Plex alternative, Serviio is a wonderful media server that helps you stream video, music, photos from your computer or NAS device to supported devices within the home network. It could transcode the media files in real-time for connected devices to fix format incompatibility issue. By applying online feeds and plugins, this Plex alternative could even stream online content. There is a Pro version, which charges a one-time fee of $25 with additional features, such as accessing your media library when you are outside of your home network.

6. Stremio

Similar to Plex, Stremio also enables you to organize, play and even stream your digital library to connected devices via instant transcoding. It is a free media server program, which allows you to install diverse addons to view various contents like movies, TV shows, web channels, sports programs, TV channels, podcasts, etc. You could even enable its cache feature to watch videos offline without network.

Comparison Table: Plex vs. Best Alternatives

Though these Plex alternatives are top choices for you to take into account when you want one, you might be confused which one to use. The below comparison table will show you detailed differences between Plex and these Plex alternatives.

Bonus Tip: Best Tools for Media Conversion and Offline Playback

Most of these media servers don’t allow you to stream online media contents like streaming contents from Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc., even though some of these streaming services offer download feature. In such case, what should you do to stream online videos via the media servers?

You could take use of video downloader software tools to download online videos from various streaming services. CleverGet All-in-One is such kind of video downloader suite that contains multiple video downloader modules specifically for diverse streaming services, such as Amazon Downloader, Netflix Downloader, Disney+ Downloader, YouTube Downloader, etc. It could help you download batch videos from 1000+ sites with selected subtitles and audio tracks preserved, and ads removed.

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• CleverGet All-in-One

  • Download online video at up to 8K with an ad filter.
  • Batch download movies, TV shows, playlists, clips, live streams, etc.
  • Reserve multiple subtitle and audio track.
  • Convert video to MP4, MKV, MP3 or other format files.
  • Record videos in background at up to 5x speed and 4K resolution.
  DownloadDownload

If you have your own Blu-ray/DVD disc collection and would like to turn your Blu-ray/DVD discs into digital media files for streaming over Plex or its alternatives, you might try Leawo Blu-ray Ripper, a professional Blu-ray/DVD ripping and converting program that could rip and convert Blu-ray/DVD contents to videos/audios in 180+ formats according to your needs.

Conclusion

While Plex media server might have its own limitations, there are both paid and free alternatives to Plex to let you fully enjoy your digital media library with more fun. You could choose whichever Plex alternatives according to your own actual needs. As to stream online videos or your Blu-ray/DVD collections, you could make use of CleverGet or Blu-ray ripping software to handle the video download and Blu-ray/DVD conversion first.