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Add to SafariWhen comparing Plex vs Parole, the Slant community recommends Plex for most people. In the question“What are the best media players for UNIX-like systems?” Plex is ranked 20th while Parole is ranked 24th. 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 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.
Pro Based on GStreamer
It's based on the GStreamer framework so it supports all GStreamer codes and plugins.
Cons
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).
Con Tries to be a Audio and Video player at the same time
So it will never be the perfect audio or video player
Con Menu navigation is poor
There are no icons inside the menus which makes them very uncomfortable and slow to browse.
Con Fat
Depending on your desktop environment it could have some huge dependencies for example it needs GStreamer and its codecs plus GTK and some Xfce libaries.
