rex Sponsor

Plex compatible · Owns no files · Sponsor beta soon

Your debrid library
in every Plex app.

rex is a media server that keeps nothing on disk. Your movies and shows stay on your debrid service and Plex clients (official or not) see a normal server with posters and seasons and your watch history.

No scanning A new release shows up in your library the moment its source tells rex about it. rex never reads a file to find out what it is.

How fast it feels on a real library →
Become a sponsor How it is set up

A closed beta for sponsors is on the way. Each build will reach everyone else 30 days after sponsors get it.

A movie library of public domain films with posters, shown by rex in the official web app

01 / What it does

The apps you know.
Nothing on your disk.

It looks like any other server.

Once you add it to your account it shows up in the apps next to your other servers. Movies and shows get posters and summaries and cast and seasons. Watched state and Continue Watching and playlists and collections all work and survive a restart.

Apps on your home network find it on their own when it runs on port 32400.

Many sources. One library.

Each source sends rex the files it has and keeps it up to date. zurg does this for you today and anything that can run ffprobe can do it too. Two zurgs on two debrid accounts end up in one Movies and one TV library.

The same film from two sources becomes one title with two versions.

It streams straight from the source.

When you press play rex reads the file from where it lives and hands it on. Nothing is downloaded first. Files play in their original quality.

Give it FFmpeg and it also converts what a device cannot play. A graphics chip makes that fast.

02 / Screens

What you see
in the apps.

Real screenshots of rex in the official web app. The library is public domain films and open movies streamed from a plain web server. Nothing is touched up.

Recommended view of the Movies library with Recently Added and Top Movies in Comedy rows
Recommended rows like any server. Recently Added and genre rows fill in by themselves as titles arrive.
Movie page for Sintel with poster and summary and cast and the file details
Every title gets its page. Poster and summary and cast and the file it plays.
Season page for The Beverly Hillbillies season 1 with cast
Shows come in seasons. Episodes are numbered from the file names and On Deck knows where you stopped.
Night of the Living Dead playing in the web app player
Press play. The file streams straight from its source in its original quality.

03 / Speed

How it feels
on a real library.

0.53s
Library on screen
From a click on Library until the posters are drawn
0.32s
To open a title
A movie page or a show page with its seasons
0.38s
Search results
From typing a word until results show with posters

Measured on a rented server with four dedicated cores. The library was 930 movies and 44 shows on a Real-Debrid account fed by zurg. Each figure is the middle of seven runs of the official web app in Chrome on the same machine with a fresh browser every run. Your own times depend on your machine and your connection. rex used 269 MB of memory during the run.

04 / Limits

The things it will not do.

Movies and TV only.

Music and photo libraries stay empty. There is no Live TV and no DVR.

One person's view.

People you share it with see it the way the owner does and with the owner's watch history.

Converted video has no subtitles yet.

A file that plays as it is keeps its subtitles. One that rex converts for a device plays without them for now.

It needs a source that probes.

rex never opens a file to learn what is inside. A title appears once its source has sent those details. zurg does this and a big library takes a few hours the first time.

Outside your home needs your own address.

The web app only connects over HTTPS and rex has no relay. Give it a certificate for a hostname you own. Keep a Cloudflare tunnel out of the way because it makes every play start read the whole file.

05 / Access

Sponsors first.
Everyone 30 days later.

rex opens as a closed beta for sponsors. Every build they get reaches the public release 30 days after.

Closed betaSponsors · soon
Every build the day it is made
Linux and macOS and Windows
The zurg nightly that feeds it
Get access

Sponsoring happens at gatekeeper. It covers the zurg nightly today. rex access is not switched on there yet.

PublicFree
The same builds 30 days later
Free

06 / Setup

Up and running.

  1. Download the build for your machine and unpack it. Linux needs Ubuntu 22.04 or newer.
  2. Tell rex where your files are and give each source a token to send with.
  3. Make an empty library and start rex with a free TMDB key.
  4. Point zurg at rex. It sends its whole library and then every change.
  5. Add it to your account if you want the apps outside your home to see it.
SETUP Linux · macOS · Windows 
# make an empty Movies and TV library
rex catalog --seed --name myrex --out rex.db

# start it
rex --catalog rex.db --sources sources.json

# zurg config.yml
rex_url: http://<rex host>:32400
rex_feed_token: <the token from sources.json>