Plex still missing granular permissions, watch history tools, audiobook and music features as Jellyfin gains ground

At a glance:

• Plex lacks granular user permissions, robust watch history management, native audiobook support, and advanced music library tools despite years of community requests
• Jellyfin offers many of these missing features for free with an open-source model and plugin ecosystem
• Plex plans to triple the lifetime Plex Pass subscription price starting next month

Granular profile controls remain a top request

Plex users have long asked for folder-level permissions, collection-based access, and customizable user groups instead of the current all-or-nothing library sharing model. The limitation is especially acute for families who maintain a single movie library spanning animated films to horror titles and want to expose only specific collections to younger viewers without maintaining duplicate libraries. Workarounds using labels or separate libraries become unwieldy as collections grow, and the same friction affects users who share servers with friends but wish to restrict access to selected portions of their media.

Jellyfin already implements detailed user policies, playback permissions, transcoding restrictions, and remote access settings per profile, demonstrating that the architecture supports such granularity. While Jellyfin does not solve every use case, its flexibility in managing multiple users highlights a gap that Plex has not addressed despite repeated forum requests. The absence of these controls forces some administrators to run parallel Jellyfin instances solely for user management, adding operational complexity.

Watch history management tools are severely limited

Watch history underpins Plex's Continue Watching row, recommendations, viewing statistics, and Trakt integrations, yet the platform offers no bulk editing, no way to remove incorrect entries, no restore function for accidentally deleted activity, no export capability, and only basic filtering when browsing watched content. These gaps surface dramatically after server migrations, metadata corruption, or accidental changes that can disrupt years of viewing data. Marking individual titles as watched works for small libraries but becomes impractical when hundreds or thousands of items need correction.

The lack of recovery tools means a single metadata error can erase viewing progress across an entire collection with no built-in remediation. Users who rely on Trakt for cross-platform sync find that Plex's one-way push does not allow pulling corrections back into the server. For households with multiple profiles, the inability to isolate and fix history per user compounds the problem, leaving administrators with manual database edits as the only recourse.

Native audiobook support absent despite persistent demand

Community forums and Reddit threads have requested a dedicated audiobook library type for years, but Plex continues to treat audiobook files as music albums, ignoring the structural differences that make long-form listening distinct. Without chapter navigation, reliable bookmarks, reading progress tracking, series organization, or narrator metadata, listeners with even modest collections face fragmented playback positions, missing series context, and cumbersome manual organization. Dedicated apps such as Audible demonstrate how chapter support, progress sync, and series-aware recommendations elevate the experience.

A proper audiobook library would need chapter markers exposed in the UI, persistent bookmarks that survive server restarts, per-title progress percentages, series grouping with reading order, and narrator and publisher fields in metadata. The current music-centric interface cannot accommodate these requirements, forcing audiobook enthusiasts to maintain separate players or migrate to alternatives like Audiobookshelf that are purpose-built for spoken-word content.

Music management lags behind Plexamp's playback excellence

Plexamp has earned a reputation as one of the best music players on any platform, with a polished interface, reliable playback, Sonic Analysis, and smart playlists that rival commercial streaming services. However, the broader Plex platform still struggles with playlist management, metadata handling for classical music, compilation album organization, reliable offline downloads, and advanced queue controls. These shortcomings become apparent quickly for collectors with large libraries.

Classical music exposes the structural mismatch: traditional artist and album fields cannot cleanly represent composers, conductors, orchestras, and soloists, leading to fragmented browsing and incorrect groupings. Compilation handling remains inconsistent, downloads frequently stall or produce incomplete files, and queue management lacks the flexibility found in dedicated music servers. While Plexamp masks some of these issues during playback, the underlying library organization remains a manual burden for serious collectors.

Jellyfin emerges as a feature-complete free alternative

Jellyfin has rapidly closed the polish gap that once made Plex the default recommendation for self-hosted media. As an open-source project with no licensing fees, it delivers nearly every core Plex feature while adding the granular permissions, audiobook libraries, and plugin extensibility that Plex lacks. Its plugin ecosystem allows users to add missing functionality without waiting for vendor roadmaps, and the community-driven development model means niche requests often ship faster.

For administrators who already maintain a Jellyfin instance to fill Plex's gaps, the incentive to consolidate on a single free platform grows stronger. Jellyfin's hardware transcoding, remote access, and client app coverage now match Plex in most scenarios, and its lack of a paid tier removes the recurring cost calculation entirely. The competitive pressure is no longer theoretical — it is a daily operational reality for mixed-environment households.

Price hike and competitive pressure raise questions about Plex's future

Plex announced that the lifetime Plex Pass subscription will triple in price starting next month, a move that dramatically alters the value proposition for prospective and existing users. Combined with the feature gaps outlined above, the increase makes it harder to justify the premium over a free alternative that already covers many of the missing capabilities. Long-time supporters who advocated for Plex based on its polish and reliability now face a cost-benefit analysis that increasingly favors migration.

The company's response to this pressure will likely define its next chapter. Addressing the four major feature gaps — granular permissions, watch history tooling, native audiobooks, and music library depth — would signal commitment to the power-user base that sustains the ecosystem. Without visible progress on these fronts, the exodus to Jellyfin and other open-source platforms may accelerate, eroding the network effects that keep Plex's client apps and partner integrations vibrant.