Emby — Personal media server for organizing and streaming your own video, music, and photo library across devices, with an optional Premiere subscription.
By Noahlast updated pricing verified
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Emby in 20 seconds
Best for: people who already run a home server and want hardware-accelerated transcoding, DVR, and offline mobile downloads
Pricing: Free core server and apps; Premiere unlocks transcoding, DVR, and offline downloads for $4.99/month, $54/year, or $119 one-time lifetime.
- Emby Premiere costs $4.99/month, $54/year, or $119 as a one-time lifetime purchase.
- A single Premiere license covers one household and up to 30 devices.
- Emby's core server and client apps are free without Premiere.
- Emby's server software is closed-source, unlike Jellyfin, its open-source sibling fork.
- Emby supports Windows, macOS, and Linux servers plus iOS, Android, Fire TV, Xbox, and PlayStation clients.
Limitations: Server software is closed-source, unlike Jellyfin.; Key features (transcoding, DVR, offline downloads) require the Premiere subscription or lifetime fee.; No aggregate third-party rating could be confirmed.
Top alternatives: Jellyfin, Plex, Stremio, Navidrome — full list
What is Emby?
Emby is self-hosted media server software: it runs on a user's own hardware, catalogs their personal video, music, photo, and live TV files with metadata and artwork, then streams that library to any device on the same network or remotely over the internet. The base server and client apps are free to use for organizing and local streaming. An optional Emby Premiere subscription ($4.99/month, $54/year, or $119 one-time for a lifetime license, covering one household and up to 30 devices) unlocks hardware-accelerated video transcoding, offline downloads to mobile devices, DVR recording and scheduling, premium apps on Fire TV, Xbox, and PlayStation, and smart-home integrations like Alexa and Google Home voice control. Emby shares its origins with Jellyfin — Jellyfin is a community fork of the Media Browser codebase that Emby itself evolved from — but unlike Jellyfin, Emby's server remains closed-source software. It occupies the same space as Plex, competing primarily on transcoding performance and DVR features rather than price, since both use a similar free-core-plus-subscription model.
Emby is a personal media server that organizes and streams a user's own video, music, photo, and live TV library to phones, tablets, smart TVs, consoles, and streaming devices from a self-hosted server. The core server and apps are free, while the optional Premiere subscription — $4.99/month, $54/year, or $119 as a one-time lifetime purchase — unlocks mobile offline downloads, hardware-accelerated transcoding, DVR scheduling, premium apps on Fire TV, Xbox, and PlayStation, and Alexa/Google Home voice control, with a single license covering one household and up to 30 devices. Emby competes directly with Jellyfin, a free and fully open-source fork of the same original Media Browser codebase, and with Plex, which follows a similar freemium model with its own Plex Pass subscription. Emby's server software is closed-source, unlike Jellyfin, a point competitors and reviewers frequently raise against it.
Standout feature: A lifetime Premiere license ($119 one-time) unlocks hardware transcoding, DVR, and offline downloads permanently instead of requiring an ongoing subscription like Plex Pass
Biggest weakness: The server software is closed-source, unlike Jellyfin (a free, fully open-source fork of the same original codebase), which is the most common reason reviewers and privacy-conscious self-hosters pick Jellyfin instead of Emby.
Pros
- Core server and streaming apps are free with no forced trial.
- Lifetime Premiere license ($119 one-time) avoids an ongoing subscription entirely.
- Hardware-accelerated transcoding and DVR scheduling are available to Premiere users.
- Broad device support: Windows, macOS, Linux server plus iOS, Android, Fire TV, Xbox, and PS4 clients.
Cons
- Server software is closed-source, unlike its direct competitor Jellyfin.
- Many of the more useful features (offline downloads, hardware transcoding, DVR) are locked behind the Premiere subscription or lifetime fee.
- Smaller and less consistently updated app ecosystem than Plex on some platforms.
- No aggregate rating could be confirmed on G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot, and Product Hunt shows zero reviews, so third-party sentiment is harder to verify than for Plex or Jellyfin.
Emby pricing
Free tier · paid from $4.99/mo · verified from the vendor's pricing page
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Core media server and apps for organizing and streaming a personal library; some client apps allow unlocking basic playback individually without Premiere. |
| Premiere (monthly) | $4.99/mo | Unlocks offline mobile downloads, hardware-accelerated transcoding, DVR, premium apps (Fire TV/Xbox/PS4), and voice control; covers one household, up to 30 devices. |
| Premiere (annual) | $54/yr | Same Premiere feature set billed yearly instead of monthly. |
| Premiere (lifetime) | $119 once | One-time purchase for permanent Premiere access, covering one household and up to 30 devices. |
What reviewers say
No third-party review scores on file yet.