Not OP, but when I was looking for an alternative it was the music analysis and Auto-Playlist/DJ features that set Plexamp apart.

Nothing wrong with having to pay for software if the prices are reasonable. It’s a product like any other, with real people working on it.

if I can get it working

It’s really as simple as starting one container per chat service, with a config like this:

services:
    beeper-<service>:
        image: ghcr.io/beeper/bridge-manager
        restart: unless-stopped
        environment:
            - MATRIX_ACCESS_TOKEN=<your beeper matrix token>
            - BRIDGE_NAME=sh-<service>
        volumes:
            - ./beeper-<service>:/data

then messaging the @sh-<service>bot:beeper.local bot user, and logging in to your chat account.

I’m using the Beeper Matrix server, but self-host their bridges. That way the de- and reencryption is done on my server, and Beeper only sees encrypted Matrix messages. It’s extremely easy to set up if you’ve used docker before, much less work than running a full Matrix server yourself.

I opened specific ports where needed, and also limit most frontends to local requests only.

I’m using the DS920+, as it’s still the best 4-bay Synology NAS for media streaming/encoding tasks afaik. Caches are read-write, and do use the NVMe slots.

The RAM upgrade and added caches definitely made a huge difference. The system is averaging around 70% RAM usage, and goes beyond that for certain tasks, so the current workload wouldn’t really be feasible without the extra RAM. And the caches really make most IO operation noticably faster, especially random drive access e.g. from multiple simultaneous processes.

I have some Arr containers on there, as well as Plex, Audiobookshelf, AppFlowy, some Beeper Matrix bridges, FileFlows for media conversion, my own Piped instance, SearXNG, Vaultwarden, FirefoxSync, and a few smaller ones.

I have a Synology NAS with 4x 12 TB Seagate IronWolf Pro drives (one drive as redundancy), as well as 2x 500 GB WD Red SN700 SSD caches. I also upgraded the RAM from 4 to 12 GB, so it can run more services in parallel without chocking. The total cost was about 1500€ for a little less than 36 TB usable disk space and imo very nice performance.

I’ve been removing Google services from my life bit by bit over the past year, and I have to say it is crazy how hard it actually is! They have inserted themselves into so many digital workflows, securing monopoly positions and preventing the rise of competitors and open ecosystems. In many areas the only alternatives are other tech giants, or accepting feature downgrades and having to set things up manually.

I’m really glad that the browser is one area where the transition is actually very simple and straightforward!

Personally I just think it’s easier to pick out the movies and shows I want to watch, and then be sure that they will be there once I sit down to watch them. No uncertainty, no hunting down a good stream or missing episode, everything is just there and ready. The process is very simple once everything is set up, and you can still delete video files after you watch them if you want to.

We have blown the concept of ownership way out of proportion. No one should be able to own things they have absolutely no connection to, like investment firms owning companies they don’t work for, houses they don’t live in or land they’ve never been to.

Apart from privacy concerns, Google has started to add some really bad features to Chrome, such as “Manifest V3” and “Web Environment Integrity”. These limit your ability to block ads or generally modify your device or the websites you’re visiting, and are just a bad for the web as a whole. WEI in particular is basically DRM for the web, so Google checks your device and denies you access to websites if they don’t like it. But as long as the majority of people keep using Chrome they can just force these things onto everyone.