You might often hear Plex and Kodi being mentioned in the same breath, which makes it sound like the two media applications are ones that force you to choose a side.Add How-To Geek on Google Add as Preferred Source Follow on Google Discover However, that couldn't be further from the truth.Plex and Kodi might both be apps that you use to watch videos or listen to music, but they've been designed to do two different, but complementary, jobs.
Kodi is all about local files, with some optional extras It's an old-school media app Kodi is a media center app.It's an interface designed to manage media on a local machine first and foremost.It's based on the original Xbox's XBMC app, where you'd have media files saved on the internal drive of the console or on removable storage.
After XBMC became cross-platform and transitioned to Kodi, it became a popular app for HTPCs, except that HTPCs themselves are no longer popular as a class of device.Instead, we're all using smart TVs and streaming boxes, and so Kodi has also become an app that will run on that hardware.That's really all the core Kodi experience is.
If you have a local device connected to storage, such as a USB hard drive, you can use Kodi to manage and play those files with a TV-friendly interface.However, Kodi also has a sophisticated add-on framework, and this is where it can start to cross over with Plex and perform some of the same functions.It's in the world of Kodi add-ons that you'll find network-connected features such as playing media files from network sources or connecting to online streaming services.
This is also why Kodi has developed an unfair reputation for piracy, since some third-party add-ons enable access to pirate streaming services.With the right add-ons, Kodi can replace the Plex , but it cannot replace the core of Plex, which is the self-hosted backend server, and the online media database.Plex is a self-hosting solution It's like your own personal Netflix Close The correct services to compare Plex with are alternatives like Emby and Jellyfin, not Kodi.
Plex is first and foremost a self-hosted streaming service that runs on your own LAN.You can use any computer in your home to be the Plex server, as long as it has performance to spare, though these days it's popular to use a mini PC with a powerful CPU and a GPU capable of hardware-accelerated transcoding as a dedicated Plex machine.While you can watch your Plex content on the same computer you're using as the server, the idea is to use other devices on the network running the Plex client.
The Plex client is widely available on many platforms, but Plex also offers DLNA as a fallback, which many media frontends (including Kodi) can use.But the true value of Plex comes from its media database in the cloud combined with its local hosting technology.If you convert your DVD collection (if you live somewhere it's legal to do so) into digital files and upload them with the correct names, Plex will automatically pull all the correct metadata.
Elevating the experience to match any commercial streaming service.You can integrate Plex and Kodi in various ways Like a media PB & J sandwich If you have a device that does not have a Plex client or a browser, Kodi can actually be the best solution to add that device to your Plex network.Add-ons like PlexKodiConnect bring your Plex library and metadata into Kodi.
It's like a fusion of the best of both.There are cruder solutions too.I ran into a situation where Kodi was the answer to my Plex problems for a while.
I love watching retro SD content on my CRT TVs, but I had to figure out how to get the content on my Plex server to play on my tubes.The first part of the solution was a Raspberry Pi 4B, which still has an analog audio and video jack, allowing for true analog composite video.If Plex was not designed for use on an old 480i TV, what now? I chose to install LibreELEC, which is a special Linux distro that boots directly to Kodi like an AV appliance.
Once I had Kodi up and running on my old TV, I used the old Plex for the Kodi plugin and finally had access to all my old shows on my old TV.Eventually, I found a better solution called 240-MP, but for a while there I was literally integrating Kodi and Plex to address a specific problem.Pick the right tool for the job Kodi and Plex can coexist in your media toolkit with zero drama at all.
Use each for what they excel at, and if you really need to have both unified, there are add-ons that do exactly what you need!
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