[doix]

> Plex allows you to stream without opening up your firewall to others.

It relies on their hosted services/infrastructure. I avoid Plex for that reason. I just host my media with nginx + indexing enabled. Wireguard for creating the tunnel between the server-client and Kodi as the frontend to view the media (you can add an indexed http server as a media source).

Works great, no transcoding like Plex, but that's less of an issue nowadays when hardware accelerated decoders are common for h264 & h265.

[mbirth]

> It relies on their hosted services/infrastructure.

Only if you want it to. Your local Plex server is always available on port 32400 - which can be opened up for others as well. But using Plex’s authentication is more convenient, of course.

[doix]

Yeah, I was specifically talking about the "firewall" bypassing the parent mentioned (most likely combined with NAT punch-through as well). You could of course use Plex without that and use wireguard (or just make it available to the internet) and not rely on their infra.

[fooqux]

Do you have any recommendations for decoders? I've been using a fire stick for a bit but I wouldn't mind a better alternative.

[hsjdndvvbv]

Apple TV 4k is my goto. Has Ethernet, can run apps.

[VerifiedReports]

I use an Nvidia Shield for everything except Blu-Ray.