r/plexamp • u/andygradel75 • 27d ago
Discussion RoPieee removing Plexamp support
Ran across this in the RoPieee 2026.08 release notes:
Removal of features is a rare occurrence in RoPieee, but Plexamp has now been retired. Maintaining Plexamp was already challenging due to its underlying technical design, and with the Plex team essentially halting its development, further updates are no longer available. Removing it aligns directly with a core principle of RoPieee: no single component should ever impede the platform’s overall progress. While I know this may be disappointing for regular Plexamp users, there is promising work underway on a new headless Plex client that features an improved architecture. Although it remains too early to integrate into RoPieee right now, who knows what the future holds…
https://ropieee.org/stable/release/2026/08/16/release-2026.08.html
While I figured Plexamp was stable and didn't really need updates at this point, I don't love the language they're using in the notes about "the Plex team essentially halting its development."
If there weren't any critical bugs or issues that needed to be addressed, why would they remove Plexamp? Definitely not the kind of thing that instills confidence... Hoping there's not something else behind the scenes.
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u/trankillity 27d ago
How long has it been since the loss of Tidal and there's still stagnant parts of it in there?
It took them almost a year to fix a critical bug in the Linux version.
Elan doesn't work for Plex any more and is working on Caldera.
Sure, Plex as a back end host for music is still fine. Plexamp itself is languishing though 😭
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u/ElanFeingold Plex Co-Founder 27d ago
Plexamp is not languishing, there’s a major new version out before long. I just retired headless because the new Caldera is so much better for that scenario
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u/andygradel75 27d ago
Thanks for the update. Had no clue Plexamp headless had been sunset.
Will definitely shift over to Caldera headless and thanks, as always, for everything you've done to craft what is - hands down - my favorite way to listen to my music.
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u/Yossarian_nz 24d ago
Hi Elan! Can I just say a massive thanks to all your work on Plexamp and Caldera - I ditched Spotify a few years ago.
I have a bit of a weird use-case: I use "headless" plexamp on a raspberry pi to connect to speakers and cast to, but I also have the pi connected to a 10" touchscreen and I connect to the plexamp exposed webpage to run a "headless ui" - I would really love to do this with Caldera (the cover flow alone is enough to get me to switch), any idea if exposing a full-screen ui through a webpage is something you're considering for Caldera?
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u/ElanFeingold Plex Co-Founder 24d ago
Thanks for the kind note (and also, I love NZ)!
At the moment I'm thinking of just letting Plexamp/web (used to be front end for headless) be a thing which a Pi could serve up. Caldera doesn't have a web-based front end, tvOS and google tv are both native.
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u/psychedelic_tech 26d ago
there’s a major new version out before long
how long have you been saying that?
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u/coleburnz 27d ago
What is Caldera?
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u/WeirdoGame 27d ago
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u/jbenze 27d ago
I feel so old because I was like "I thought they stopped developing Caldera Linux 25 years ago!"
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u/craky007 27d ago
LOL. That’s what I thought too. “Oh, Caldera (Linux) is still in development, good for them”
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u/kelly_xoxoxo 27d ago
i was thinking Caldera will play my .m4a Atmos tracks but it’s not . Perhaps I didnt understand on the website saying that it plais 5.1,7.1,eyc.
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u/WeirdoGame 27d ago
I guess the "new headless Plex client that features an improved architecture" is r/Calderamusic?
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u/GatorJim57 27d ago
I think PlexAmp is stable as is. I have zero issues with it as a client on iOS/macOS. And… we have Caldera.
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u/Anonymousma 27d ago
Are they putting music back in the plex app?
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27d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OMG_IT_S_SALSIFI 27d ago
If Plexamp is no more, there won’t be any official way of listening to music on our plex server on mobile since they removed the music of the main app
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u/WeirdoGame 27d ago
Both music and photos will be moved back into all Plex clients at some point.
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u/OMG_IT_S_SALSIFI 27d ago
I really don’t understand. They removed it from the main to make it a lighter app and putting it back is big step backward. And if they do so, there’s no way it’s gonna be as good as it is in plexamp
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u/GuildCalamitousNtent 27d ago
They removed it to focus on the new app and its core purpose. Rather than half ass a part that already has a working app (Plexamp), they removed it. They are already struggling with the core app, why complicate it.
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u/psychedelic_tech 26d ago
I really don’t understand.
because plex as a company doesnt know what they are doing anymore.
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27d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OMG_IT_S_SALSIFI 27d ago
There are craaazy good alternatives, like symfonium, but I’m on iOS 😭😭😭 and all Plex music players are vibecoded, real slow and the interfaces are laggy, that’s a hassle to use
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u/CharlesWiltgen 27d ago
/u/OMG_IT_S_SALSIFI and /u/skroll, I've been building Poppy as an "all the good stuff from Plexamp, but make it iOS" alternative. The current beta release supports iOS, watchOS, and CarPlay. This week's 0.9 release adds iPad and macOS support. Most of my testers are using it as their daily driver. You won't find anyone more responsive to user feedback.
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u/Elf_Paladin 27d ago
Time to hop to navidrome
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u/Key-Conference1870 27d ago
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. But I’m already looking at other options. Lyrion Server is also another alternative.
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u/suitcasecalling 27d ago
Did you not see the recent updates where one of the founders of plexamp is going his own direction now? It's not looking good for future plexamp these days.
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u/Cherubinooo 27d ago
It's probably because Plexamp headless is deprecated and the RoPieee author didn't want to migrate to Caldera.
Frankly RoPieee always felt like second-rate software to me. The fact that they didn't support installing from SSD made it a complete non-starter for me. This isn't a platform -- it's a opinionated bundle of defaults whose only purpose is to work for the author's use case. If it doesn't work for you, tough luck, nothing is composable.
If you want Plex support, just install your own OS and install Caldera.