The team behind the media management service Plex, has announced that their Plex Media Player app has now gone free for all users alongside the official first release of Plex for Kodi. The latter announcement might pique the interest of those building custom home theater configurations that still want the freedom of control offered by Kodi.

Starting off, Plex has brought a “desktop mode” to the popular Media Player allowing users to queue up and control their media all within the same app. When the Media Player app is in a windowed state, users can now navigate and control the UI using the keyboard and mouse. A new full-screen button in the toolbar allows the app to jump back into the previously default TV UI for comfortable viewing. Plex Media Player is now also 100% free, something that was previously only available to Plex Pass subscribers.

We’ve been working closely with some of the best Kodi add-on developers in the world to create an awesome, fully-immersive Plex experience within Kodi. Seriously: once you’re up and running, you’ll never know it’s not Plex! You get the same Plex server discovery, user switching, gorgeous library browsing, and media playback experience you know and love, plus a few (okay, a few dozen) more settings to tweak to your heart’s content. Check it all out here! The Plex for Kodi add-on is a Plex Pass only preview, and you can find it in the new Plex for Kodi forums here.

Probably the biggest news out from the Plex team today is the official announcement of Plex for Kodi. Longtime media management DIYers may remember that both Kodi and Plex were sprung from the old XBMC projects of yesteryear. Like Plex, Kodi is software media center with extensive support for playing videos, music, pictures, and even games (unlike Plex). Kodi has been a long time favorite to users as it’s allows for large extensibility with the inclusion of add-ons. Users could download add-ons that enabled support for third-party video services, Dropbox, and gaming systems. Today, Plex comes back full circle by announcing an add-on for the Kodi media center. This add-on includes a new UI not previously seen, and something that may make it’s way to other systems. This will now give Kodi users the ability to jump in and out of Plex as they please while still maintaining the in-depth customization offered by Kodi.

Plex Media Player is available for free on the Mac and a separate Plex application compatible with iPhones and iPads is available the iOS App Store. Plex Pass is available at $4.99/monthly, $39.99/yearly, or $149.99 for a lifetime subscription.

Note: Plex Media Player on the desktop is now available for free; this differs from the Plex application available on iOS.

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