braedonsaunders/ether

Ether is a self-hosted replacement for the file-serving side of Plex Media Server, aimed at people who already have Usenet providers or debrid accounts and want the whole TMDB catalogue browsable and playable in the official Plex apps without downloading, unpacking or scanning files. Rather than presenting files for Plex Media Server to index, Ether implements the Plex server protocol itself and streams byte ranges on demand README.

What changes in the workflow

Pressing Play on a title triggers an on-demand resolution: Ether picks a release using quality profiles and custom formats, health-checks it across your providers, and serves only the byte ranges the player requests. Scrubbing seeks to the matching keyframe inside a remote Usenet archive or debrid HTTPS stream. The README's own comparison puts this against Sonarr/Radarr, download clients, debrid mount tools and request managers, claiming no queue, no extraction and no library scan README. The default pass-through mode needs little disk; a larger managed shelf preloading household titles is optional.

Alongside that core path, Ether offers per-viewer home-screen personalisation, subtitle timing alignment across different cuts, poster overlays, Live TV with virtual channels, hardware transcoding, and an active-active PostgreSQL clustering option. These are optional extras: ordinary playback does not require them README.

Requirements and accounts

Setup runs through a web UI and a short wizard: sign in with Plex, claim the server, add a source (Usenet provider plus indexer, or a debrid account plus torrent indexer, Cardigann site or Stremio addon), choose a cache preset, and paste a TMDB API key README. Packaging exists for macOS 13+, Windows x64, Linux .deb/.rpm, and Docker with templates for Unraid, TrueNAS SCALE, Proxmox and Synology install docs.

Local-network playback needs no Plex Pass, but remote streaming follows Plex's own rules and requires Plex Pass or a Remote Watch Pass; Ether does not bypass Plex entitlements. There is no Plex Relay support, so remote access needs UPnP/NAT-PMP, a port forward or a reverse proxy, and there is no DVR recording README. If Plex Media Server already uses port 32400 on the same machine, Ether moves to 32450.

Documented boundaries

Usenet archives must be store-mode (plain or password-encrypted RAR4/RAR5/7z); compressed archives and RAR-wrapped torrents are skipped. Debrid-Link and Offcloud support is newer and the README says it is awaiting reports from live accounts. Server-side NVIDIA RTX Video Super Resolution is Windows-only, off by default, and requires an RTX GPU and NVEncC64. The README also warns that some private indexers restrict streaming engines.

Ether ships no media, providers, indexers, debrid accounts or API keys; owners supply their own and are responsible for compliance LEGAL.md. It reports no telemetry and is GPL-3.0 README. The project states 2,600+ offline tests and protocol conformance checks, but this is the author's own report, not independent validation.