Summary
- Plex is better for customization & support, while Emby is great for minimalism and streaming.
- Compatibility with devices should be your primary concern when choosing between Plex and Emby.
- Plex is easier to install and has more extensive parental controls, while Emby has superior customization and UI simplicity.
If your personal media collection is growing, both Plex and Emby will serve you well. While they ultimately serve the same purpose, the two have several defining traits that make one more useful than the other.
First, ask yourself why you even want a media server in the first place. Personally, I wanted a place to store all of my media—movies, shows, pictures, and music, which is a big one for me. PlexAmp is awesome to use, and it’s a native feature. Plex has also aged like fine wine. There are numerous plugins to tweak my server to my liking, and support for it is in a good place right now.
Emby is not without its uses. It has plugins, though not as many, custom CSS, and does well when you just want to stream your movies and shows. For that reason, Emby is better for tinkering and minimalism. You’d have to go out of your way to find a PlexAmp equivalent for Emby, which may not have as good of support as the former.
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Compatibility Should Be Your #1 Concern
Brady Meyers / How-To Geek
One of the biggest sticking points for me, and it should be for you as well, is whether Plex or Emby will even work for the devices you plan to use. If you’re sharing your library with others, you should be concerned with their devices, too. This includes both the server and the client.
For example, Emby has clients for PS4, Xbox One and Series X|S, but not PS5. Plex is compatible with PS5, as well as Xbox.
Again, Plex’s age does it a big favor here. It’s had more time to garner support for client-side apps. Even odd ones, like Facebook Portal. It works with Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, consoles, Raspberry Pi, smart TVs, and more.
To be fair, Emby’s support is also very extensive—nearly as much as Plex, despite it being younger software in comparison. Check-in with both Emby’s compatibility list and Plex’s compatibility list before you make a choice.
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The Ease of Installation
I’ve installed Plex and Emby, and the former was, without a doubt, much easier to install. That’s not to say Emby is tough, it isn’t, but the difference between the two comes down to setup. With Plex, it’s just a few clicks—it’ll be ready to use in under five minutes. Emby, on the other hand, throws a lot of tinkering at you right off the bat, so it isn’t as beginner-friendly.
Plex takes it upon itself to set everything up automatically, excluding adding content to stream (though it does have live TV and free movies). Even adding a content library will take 30 seconds, if that.
That said, both Emby and Plex work right out of the box. No plugins required. However, you may find yourself scanning for plugins with Emby if you want it to function similarly to Plex, like live television.
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UI Customization and Navigation
Brady Meyers / How-To Geek
When it comes to navigation, this just comes down to personal preference. Plex and Emby have really clean UIs and are quite easy to find everything you need, especially when you move Plex’s free content out of the way, but Emby is barren. If you prefer a more minimalist UI, Emby easily gets the point. It’s as clean a slate as you can get.
Customization also goes to Emby due to its custom CSS, provided you have the technical know-how. Don’t have those skills? The community does have themes they share on sites like GitHub, some of which make Emby look like popular streaming platforms.
If that’s not your cup of tea, Plex is easy on the eyes. There are a few basic UI tweaks you can make for easier navigation, like colors or switching between classic and modern layouts, though it pales in comparison to a nice, custom CSS.
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Access to Parental Controls
Emby and Plex have equally effective parental controls, but Emby’s are notably better and, more importantly, aren’t locked by Emby Premiere—Emby’s equivalent to the Plex Pass.
Plex just has nebulous brackets, like “Younger Kids” and “Teens,” which only encompass a handful of ratings. Emby gives you full access to ratings, blocks specific items, and restricts content using tags—features Plex has, too, but are locked behind Plex Pass.
Plex Pass
A Plex Pass subscription takes your media server to the next level, with remote streaming, hardware transcoding, offline downloads, and more.
If you have kids but are leaning towards Plex, I highly recommend running Emby, too, just for the parental controls. That’s what I do, and it’s worked out pretty well for me so far.
In fact, I don’t bother to choose one over the other. That’s also an option. Why not use Emby and Plex together? They’re neck-and-neck in a lot of ways, with Plex having a notable lead due to seniority. Plex’s Universal Watchlist feature also makes it difficult to give up entirely.
