rex: a media server for the Plex apps that owns no files

Any source. Every Plex app.
A media server that owns no files.

Website · Download · Docs · FAQ · Discord

rex-promo.mp4

Your movies and shows stay on a debrid service, a Usenet provider or any web server. rex shows them to the Plex apps as a normal server, and when you press play it streams the file straight from where it lives. Nothing is downloaded first and nothing is scanned: a title appears as soon as its source tells rex about it.

_{Real screenshots of Plex Web on rex, with public domain films and open movies streamed from a plain web server.}

What you get

Looks like any other Plex server. Posters, summaries, cast, seasons and episodes from Plex's own metadata. Watched state, Continue Watching, playlists, collections, edits and Fix Match all work and survive a restart.
Original quality, straight from the source. With jellyfin-ffmpeg installed rex also converts what a device cannot play; on a small Intel GPU a converted 1080p film starts in about 2 seconds.
Subtitles that fit. Search Subtitles uses Plex's own provider. rex checks the one you pick against a text subtitle in the file, or its audio when FFmpeg is installed, and fixes the timing when it is off.
Many sources, one library. Your debrid accounts, your Stremio addons and an app of your own can all fill the same Movies and TV Shows libraries.
Music and Live TV from addons. An addon can bring albums, which Plex names and Plexamp plays, and live channels with a TV guide (Building rex addons).
No Plex Pass. Remote playback in Plex Web and converting video work on free accounts. So do movie editions, the server Dashboard, Downloads and, with FFmpeg, intro and credits skipping (what works).
Free for personal use, with the source code public and nightly builds.

Search Subtitles	Original quality, or converted

Get started

Pick the guide for what you have.

You have	Guide
Files your own app serves over HTTP	rex with your own app
Stremio addons	rex with your Stremio addons, free, with no sponsorship
Your debrid library or Usenet, through zurg	rex with zurg
A Plex server today	Move from Plex to rex

In short:

Get it. Download the newest build for Linux (glibc 2.35 or newer, so Ubuntu 22.04 and up), macOS or Windows, run the Docker image ghcr.io/debridmediamanager/rex:nightly on Linux, or build it with Rust.
Start it. It makes an empty Movies and an empty TV Shows library.
Claim it with a code from plex.tv/claim on a fresh free Plex account, and share it with your own. At your own risk: rex is not made by Plex, and Plex could act against the account that claims it.
Point a source at it. Give it http://<rex's LAN IP>:32400 and it registers itself: for zurg that is rex_url in its config.yml, for rex-stremio rex's address on its settings page, for your own app the feed API.
Forward port 32400 to rex to watch away from home. rex-direct gives rex an HTTPS address for that, and one for home that app.plex.tv uses with no port forward. Check them from home and from a phone off Wi-Fi.

You need rex nightly 2026.10.25 or newer and, for zurg, zurg nightly 2026.10.27 or newer (a sponsor build. gatekeeper gives your GitHub account access). docs/setup.md has every command, Windows, Docker, running it as a service, updates and a troubleshooting table.

Two things to know first. Deleting a title in a Plex app as the claiming account deletes it at its source too, from your debrid account for zurg; untick Allow media deletion (Settings, Library, Show Advanced) to stop that. And a reverse proxy or tunnel on the rex machine must block /rex/, or it opens rex's feed to the internet.

Once it runs: share it with family and friends, bring your watch history from your old Plex server, add Kometa collections, or let the apps download from your provider.

Sources and addons

rex reads no media from disk. A source (an addon, your own app or zurg) tells rex what files it has and what is in them over the feed API, and serves them when you press play.

Source	What it brings
rex-stremio	Your Stremio addons' catalogs, played from your stream addons
zurg	Your debrid accounts and Usenet
rex-live-sports	The channels of a live-sports server, played live
Your own	Building rex addons walks through one

Limits

Music needs a source that sends tracks (feed API). Plexamp, Plex Web and Plex for Android play it, but Plexamp's radio, mixes and stations are missing.
Live TV shows the channels a source brings, such as rex-live-sports, with their guide, in Plex Web's and Plex for Android's Live TV. Nothing records: there is no DVR.
Photo libraries stay empty.
A title shows up only once its source has probed it. A source's first pass over a big library can take a few hours.
Away from home rex needs an address of its own: rex-direct, or a certificate for a hostname you own. rex has no relay, so behind CGNAT use Tailscale or a small VPS (how).
Downloads for offline viewing leave text subtitles out.
Remote playback on free accounts is checked in Plex Web only; the other Plex apps have not been tested away from home on free accounts.
It started as an experiment and got further than expected. It is not a product and does not try to replace Plex.

For developers

rex is written in Rust. CLAUDE.md covers the code, the tests and how every behaviour was measured against a real Plex Media Server, and docs/findings.md is the record of those measurements. docs/feed-api.md is the API a source uses to push its library.

License

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0: free for personal, hobby, educational and other noncommercial use. Commercial use is not allowed. Copies must keep the license and its Required Notice line, which credits the author. The Docker image also carries jellyfin-ffmpeg (GPL), unmodified, from its own releases.

rex is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Plex, Inc. Plex is a trademark of Plex, Inc.

More from DMM: Debrid Media Manager · zurg · rex · Docs · Sponsor · Discord · Reddit