Even though it’s not always an ideal solution, it’s useful to be able to link a wide variety of devices together without any third-party apps.You can refer to Plex as a streaming service, because that is technically true. This standard’s strength is still its wide ecosystem of supported devices. Though hosting your own media server and streaming over a local network seems less relevant than it once did, DLNA ensures excellent compatibility between computers running media servers and the client devices on which the media is consumed.

When you think of streaming video or audio, you probably imagine services like Netflix and Spotify. It boasts a large number of features including a web interface, online media streaming, and transcoding. The project is based on the now-discontinued PS3 Media Server and is available for Windows, macOS, Linux and as a Docker container. If you’d rather just run a DLNA server on your computer, consider Universal Media Server.

RELATED: Why Jellyfin Is the Plex Alternative You've Been Waiting For Alternatively, if you use the media center app Kodi you can also enable DLNA media streaming under Settings > Services > UPnP/DLNA. It too features a DLNA media server that broadcasts your library to devices that lack a Jellyfin client app. Jellyfin is a free open-source Plex alternative that works in much the same way, also offering DLNA media streaming.

RELATED: How to Set Up Plex (and Watch Your Movies on Any Device) Plex’s own media player offers more features, but DLNA streaming allows you to access your Plex library on devices that don’t have a Plex client or web browser, but do offer DLNA support. Set up Plex on your computer (or a Plex alternative) and use Plex DLNA streaming on another device to access your media.

Many different media servers support DLNA, including the immensely popular Plex Media Server.

Plex media server windows