> 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

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

That's exactly my point: It runs on your computer, on your LAN, serving your media. How is it doing anything outside your control, then?

For NAT bypass you need infrastructure with a real IP.

It talks to Plex servers to give outside access....

Thanks. I've only heard of people using it to stream stuff around their own house; didn't even know it exposed access remotely.

Im confused. There are two different streaming things on Plex. They support streaming inside the plex app of content from the usual streaming services, much like Apple TV or your TV’s built in media manager. They also support streaming your collection across the internet to wherever you are. Which is now behind a paywall?

I don't use Plex anymore, but not long before I cancelled my account they starting charging to access someone's library that had been shared with you if the sharing party did not have Plex pass, or something to that effect.