LibreELEC

What do you like best?

I like that it's open source in that you can customize what you want. However, I hate that it's open source in that if something breaks up stream after you've customized something to work in your environment you get very little (read "NONE") support from the developers since you decided to break their code. I like that it's the follow on evolution of Kodi which was XBMC which was XBOX media Center (yes kids I'm that Old)... I remember having HALO LAN parties in barracks 33612 on Camp Margarita on MCB Camp Pendleton before 9/11 and our G-6 IT Marines would have so much Cat5 strung through out the barracks we would all be online slaying each other and then we'd all be streaming movies. I got nostalgic and thought I give this a go. It's not quite there yet but it made me walk back down memory lane for a week or so.

What do you dislike?

I hate that it's open source in that if something breaks up stream after you've customized something to work in your environment you get very little (read "NONE") support from the developers since you decided to break their code.

Many of the developers are helpful but if you're not a programmer the development team doesn't have the patience to help you. The inability to speak a language is still a turn off to many users. Until such time as a developer learns to tolerate the pain of listening to a user's frustrations than this product's evolutions will only slowly evolve. Sadly commercial product will "lap" this very quickly and will sunset libre very quickly.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Although I vastly prefer my apple tv plex app for it. in the long run it's cheaper to use the apple tv with the free plex app than trying to build a libre elec appliance.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

It's great in that I can use it as a stand alone media center for my plex server.