For a time and I have no idea if this is still true Plex had a serious advantage in the sheer range of client platforms it supported (iOS, Android, smart TVs, Roku, etc.)
Ouch. I wonder if this is related to when Plex tried to unify development of their mobile app in late 2025 so they’d have a single shared codebase for both Android and iOS?
I’ve heard from a lot of people who accidentally upgraded to the latest version of Plex on their iPads that it’s a shadow of its former self: tons of features are missing, SRT are unreliable, picture-in-picture flakes out, etc etc.
It's possible, because I used the Plex app on that same hardware for years. It certainly wasn't Google's software gettng heavier (it was already RAM and battery-hungry enough I'd dropped it), but trying to use Plex became an exercise in frustration around that time
They support (or did previously support) more platforms, but Jellyfind is what runs at a reasonable speed on my phone, so that's what'll get used