These 3 third-party Plex add-ons unlock features that Plex Pass won't give you

Published Aug 30, 2026, 10:15 AM EDT Andy is a senior writer and former Mac editor at HTG. He has over 20 years experience as a consumer tech journalist, and has covered everything from the old Palm Pilots to the original iPhone and Android devices, to the latest gadgets. He has written and edited for UK-based print publications like PDA Essentials and Android Magazine, and online at sites including MUO, Android Tips and Hacks, broadband.co.uk, and Envato. He has a passion for all things mobile and has been a keen Mac enthusiast since 2005. Plex is probably the easiest way to get started with building your own media server, but even if you choose to upgrade to Plex Pass, it still doesn't give you everything you might want. Fortunately, there are some third-party apps that can fill in the gaps. I keep my setup fairly lean and built around three main add-ons for detailed stats, different ways to stream and download, and adding a request service. Tautulli Detailed stats on who's watching, what, and when Plex gives you basic information about what's happening on your server, but if you've got a particularly large library and several users, it often falls short of what you need. This is where Tautulli comes in. It's what you'd probably call a "stats for nerds" app, tracking server activity, viewing history, users, streams, and detailed statistics. It's not just data for the sake of it; it's actually really practical. Tautulli lets you see who's watching what on your Plex server at any moment, and it keeps detailed records of everything that all of your users have watched. You can see how much bandwidth each stream is using and whether Plex is direct playing, direct streaming, or transcoding your media. It's great for troubleshooting, as well as for monitoring users, their viewing habits, and the popularity of the content in your library. A couple of examples of when I find it useful are when I'm pruning my library and want to make sure that I'm not removing anything that someone is watching and also when there are performance issues, and it helps me tell whether transcoding is the culprit, which it often is. It's got a load of really niche features as well that I don't need, like sending notifications and newsletters to the people who share your library. But if you've got many users, these can be really helpful. Plezy Offline downloads, Watch Together, and more, without a subscription Plezy has recently become my favorite Plex app, in part because it delivers features that you normally can only access by upgrading to Plex Pass, but I also like the look of it. It's a very lean and stylish alternative Plex client. While it's not true to say that Plezy allows you to completely bypass Plex's paywall, it certainly works out cheaper. The desktop apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux are free and might be all you need. The app store apps for Apple, Android, and Fire TV devices are priced at a one-off $5.99 fee. So what is it about Plezy that makes it so essential? Firstly, there are the things that you normally have to pay for. Its biggest advantage for me is support for offline viewing. I often download media from my Plex server and take it with me, and I can do that very easily with this app. I also appreciate that intro skipping is built right in. These two features are simple enough that they shouldn't be paywalled, in my opinion. On top of that, there's a Watch Together feature, you can access your library from outside your home network, and there's broad playback support for a wide range of files and things like HDR and Dolby Vision. Depending on your device, you might find you're transcoding less. I also like the look of the app and the fact that it doesn't push you towards content that isn't stored in your library. It's open source, which I regard as a plus, although you do have to keep Plex open while you're using it. Seerr The easy way for friends to ask you to add something to your library If you're the owner of a Plex media server and the library of content that goes with it, you've no doubt had friends and family telling you about new shows and movies that they'd like to watch and hinting that maybe you could add them to your library. Seerr gives them somewhere to do it properly. It provides a dedicated interface where people can easily discover and request movies and TV shows. They can see whether something is already available in your Plex library, and it can turn items in a Plex watchlist into requests. If this sounds annoying, you can control what individual users are allowed to request, and the app keeps track of what's pending, approved, and completed. It becomes a much more convenient way for your family members to tell you what you want added to your server without actually having to pester you about it. The downside to Seerr is that setting it up is a lot more hands-on than the other two apps I've recommended. I'm running it through Docker, which is the easiest way to set it up, and then I give others on my network a link to the Seerr interface. Making it accessible remotely takes even more setup, such as using a domain or tunneling service. Third-party apps help you get more from Plex Plex is a powerful media server tool, and a Plex Pass subscription makes it even more capable. Third-party apps can improve it even further. You don't need to go overboard and install countless apps and plugins, though. The three apps I keep installed give me detailed stats, easy offline viewing, and a request system, which is almost all that I need.