Embyvs
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Emby
Your personal entertainment server
As of 30 August 2026, Emby has a free plan and paid plans start at $4.99/month. Emby is a personal media server software and streaming app that allows you to stream movies, TV shows, music, and photos to any device from your personal collec. Softwr lists it under Entertainment. Emby is made by Emby Inc, launched in 2014, available on Web, iOS, Android, TV and console.
Overview
What Emby does
Emby is a personal media server software and streaming app that allows you to stream movies, TV shows, music, and photos to any device from your personal collection.
What people use it for
- Running a personal media server for films, television and music
- Streaming a home library to phones, tablets and televisions
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Emby.
- Hardware accelerated transcoding requires Emby Premiere, so a server GPU sits unused without a subscription
- The mobile, Fire TV, Xbox and PlayStation apps need Premiere for full access, with only basic playback unlockable per app
- Offline downloads to phones and tablets are Premiere only
- Premiere is $4.99 a month or $54 a year, with a lifetime option at $119
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Emby
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- EmbyvsCastbox
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- EmbyvsApple TV+
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- EmbyvsCastro
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Pricing
What Emby costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Media server
- Local streaming
Premiere
$4.99 /mo
- Cloud sync
- Remote access
- Sync to devices
Capabilities
Features
Personal media server
Streaming
Library management
Sync
Remote access
Smart TVs
Integration with Smart TVs
Streaming devices
Integration with Streaming devices
Mobile devices
Integration with Mobile devices
User management
User management security feature
Parental controls
Parental controls security feature
Remote access controls
Remote access controls security feature
Web support
Available on web
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
How much does Emby cost?
Emby does not publish pricing information on its website. The service mentions Emby Premiere as an optional premium tier with bonus features including mobile downloads and hardware accelerated transcoding, but no cost is specified.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Emby
- Company
- Emby Inc
- Based in
- Salt Lake City, UT
Keep looking
Where to go from Emby
- Emby alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Emby pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Emby badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Entertainment softwareThe full category
- Best Entertainment softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Entertainment software for
Compare Emby with
- Overcast
- Castbox
- Castro
- Apple TV+
- Plex
- Jellyfin
- Infuse
- Kodi
- Paramount+
- Spotify
- YouTube
- MUBI
- Netflix
- Roku
- Unreal Engine
- Apple Music
- Jellyfin
- Kodi
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Emby, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Emby
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What people switch to, and what they give up
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Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
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