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Add to SafariWhen comparing Solid Explorer vs Plex, the Slant community recommends Plex for most people. In the question“What are the most useful Android phone apps?” Plex is ranked 20th while Solid Explorer is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose Plex is:
It's pretty hard to find a NAS or STB that doesn't support Plex.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to use
With the amount of functions as well as the two pane browsing, Solid Explorer is very easy to use.
Pro Two panel browsing
Solid Explorer allows for two separate panels to be browsed simultaneously, allowing for easy copy past functions as well as drag and drop.
Pro Beautiful material design
Pro Connects to cloud services
Add Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, and more, all natively through extensions.
Pro Ability to read and extract ZIP, 7ZIP, RAR and TAR archives, even encrypted
Pro Rich customization options: icons sets, colour schemes, themes
Pro A perfect implementation of Material Design
Pro Multi-Platform Versatility
Solid Explorer has efficient, productive, and fluid interfaces customized for each users' specific platforms. Versatile, intuitive, and productive on small mobile screens, and capitalizes on larger mobiles (tablets), increasing functionality with added screen real estate.
Pro Cloud file manager: Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, Sugarsync, Copy, Mediafire, Owncloud, Yandex
Pro Ability to create password protected ZIP and 7ZIP archives
Pro FTP, SFTP, WebDav, SMB/CIFS clients
Pro Root access makes Solid Explorer a fully functional root explorer
Pro Detailed file information with storage usage statistics
Pro Native picture viewer (SE Image) and music player (SE Music Player)
Allows quick opening of images and audio files to preview without opening another app.
Pro Useful tools: hiding unwanted folders, FTP Server (plugin), bookmarks, Chromecast support, media browser
Pro Batch rename: change names of multiple files at once using regular expressions and variables
Pro Indexed search finds your files in a couple of seconds
Pro Protect individual files &/or folders with a password
If your device has a fingerprint sensor you can use it to open encrypted files without a need to provide the password. The same applies for cloud storages, which can now be accessed with the fingerprint as well.
Pro Extensibility: more features in separate plugins available in Google Play
Pro Supported on many devices
It's pretty hard to find a NAS or STB that doesn't support Plex.
Pro Accessible via web browser
A modern web browser is enough to get everything Plex has to offer.
Pro Added lots of media databases
Metadata for media files will automatically be updated by using media databases. This provides posters, movie trailers, descriptions, information about actors, etc.
Cons
Con Costs money
There is a 14 day free trial, but for those that would like to use the app longer, it will cost money to unlock.
Con Slow SMB connections
Connecting to a Samba server can take 30 seconds or longer.
Con No native Office document viewer or video player
There is no native document viewer, except for the plain text editor (SE Text Editor), nor is there a native video player, with the exception of a video casting app (SE Video Cast). The video casting app appears to require a Chromecast device.
Con Needs registration
You need a PLEX account even if you use it on your local LAN.
Con Proprietary software
Unfree software.
Con No gapless audio-playback
Plex still does not support gapless playback of audio files such as mp3 or FLAC.
Con Playback error: This server is not powerful enough to convert video
More hardware requirements on Plex due to a useless/non-intuitive transcoder. When using lower spec hardware (eg SBC) Plex will not transcode or play HD+ videos. When compared to other packages (eg Jellyfin which transcodes nicely using FFMeg), Plex falls short on video playback and transcode settings to get videos to play (fastest/lightest option still fails).
