Emby began in 2008 as Media Browser, a free plugin that gave Windows Media Center a real library view and cover art. Seventeen years and one company later, it’s closed-source software sold on a subscription. The path between those two facts is most of the reason Jellyfin exists.
Note: this is the origin story, not a setup guide. For pricing, the Docker install, and a head-to-head with the fork it spawned, see the Emby app fiche or the full Jellyfin vs Emby comparison. Want the other half of this story? The History of Jellyfin covers the fork itself, and The History of Plex covers the third major option.
A Windows Media Center plugin, born in 2008
Windows Media Center was Microsoft’s attempt at a living-room PC interface, and by the mid-2000s a small ecosystem of plugins had grown up around it. One of them, Video Browser, had been kicking around since at least 2007. In December 2008, with the release of version 2.0.0, it was renamed Media Browser. It wasn’t the most feature-complete option out there (Luke Pulverenti, who’d later take the project over, has said as much), but it had, in his words, “the best presentation around.” If you wanted to show off a home theater PC to a friend, Media Browser was what you put on screen. Development in these years was volunteer-driven: a community of Windows Media Center enthusiasts building plugins, sharing them on forums, and iterating in public with essentially no company behind any of it.
Windows 8 killed Windows Media Center, and an ordinary user stepped in
Media Browser’s fate was tied to Windows Media Center’s, and that became a problem in 2012. Windows 8 shipped without Windows Media Center built in, and Microsoft made clear the feature was on its way out. For a plugin that depended entirely on that host application, this was existential. Luke Pulverenti, at the time just a regular Media Browser user with a healthcare-software background, decided the project needed to become something bigger than a plugin. He approached the developer known as “ebr” (Eric B. Reed), who was running Media Browser at the time, and proposed rebuilding it as a standalone client-server application: something that could stream to phones and remote devices, not just render inside one Windows app on one PC. That pitch became Media Browser 3, announced in February 2013 and released as a public beta that May. It kept the name, but structurally, this was the beginning of what would become Emby: a real server with a real API, no longer tied to Microsoft’s media center software or to Windows at all.
2015: Media Browser becomes Emby
By January 2015, Luke Pulverenti had gone full-time on the project, and Emby LLC was formally established in Cornelius, North Carolina, with Pulverenti and Eric B. Reed listed as members. Two months later, the rebrand was official: the “Introducing Emby” post on the Emby community blog announced that Media Browser was becoming Emby, a name the team chose specifically because it still sounded like “MB” when spoken aloud, a nod to where the project came from and something shorter and easier to say to non-technical friends and family.
At the time, this wasn’t a company quietly plotting to go proprietary. In a September 2015 interview with Linux.com, Pulverenti described Emby Server as “fully open source under GPL V2.0,” and said anyone could run it from source in minutes. The business model funding all of this was a “Supporter” membership: bonus features sold to people who wanted to pitch in, not a wall in front of the core product. It’s a detail worth sitting with. For its first several years as Emby, the project looked a lot like what Jellyfin looks like today.
The slow closing of the source, 2017-2018
That openness didn’t hold. By August 2017, community members were noticing that pieces of Emby’s codebase were shipping without accompanying source. Wikipedia’s contemporary summary described it as “mostly open with some closed-source components.” In March 2018, several developers, people who would go on to found Jellyfin later that year, filed a GitHub issue alleging GPL violations in how Emby was distributing code. Then, in September 2018, with the release of version 3.5.3, Emby made it official: the main server build was now closed-source, with whatever open-source pieces remained pushed into optional plugins.
The final trigger came on December 8, 2018, when Emby announced that its upcoming 4.x release would be closed-source too. No more ambiguity, no more partially-open middle ground. That announcement is where this article and Jellyfin’s history split apart. Within about a day, a group of Emby contributors had started forking the last fully open release and building what would become Jellyfin. The blow-by-blow of that fork (who was involved, how fast it moved, what happened in the 22 days between the announcement and the first release) is covered in The History of Jellyfin. Emby, meanwhile, kept going as a company with a commercial product to protect.
Emby after the fork: a private company’s own path, 2019-2026
Losing a chunk of its community to an open-source alternative didn’t stop Emby’s development. It just meant Emby kept building behind a closed door instead of an open one. The 4.x line arrived in earnest around 2020, and much of what followed was the unglamorous work of a company iterating on a commercial product: better 4K and HDR transcoding, a plugin SDK for developers in 2024, and steady point releases to the native apps that have always been part of Emby’s pitch. The Apple TV app reached version 2.0.3 in March 2026; Emby Server’s stable branch sat at 4.9.1.90 as of November 2025. In December 2024, the old Emby Theater desktop app for Windows and Xbox was retired in favor of a new unified Emby app.
None of that is groundbreaking, and it isn’t meant to be. It’s what ongoing maintenance from a small company looks like. What it does confirm is that Emby didn’t fold or get abandoned after 2018, which was a reasonable worry at the time among users watching a community fork walk away with most of the goodwill. Emby Premiere has kept the same basic shape for years: $4.99 a month, $54 a year, or a $119 one-time lifetime purchase, occasionally discounted, unlocking hardware transcoding, DVR, offline sync, and ad-free apps on top of a server core that’s still free to install and stream from.
Where Emby has arguably held its ground best is the one area a volunteer project structurally struggles to match: native app polish. Dedicated, actively maintained apps for Apple TV and PlayStation are still something Jellyfin can’t offer out of the box, and that gap is a big part of why some households pick Emby over the free, open alternative it indirectly gave rise to. For more on how the two actually compare feature by feature, see Jellyfin vs Emby; if you’re weighing Plex too, emby.media and our Jellyfin vs Plex breakdown round out the picture.
Emby’s history in seven moments
- 2008: Video Browser, a Windows Media Center plugin, is renamed Media Browser with the 2.0.0 release.
- 2012: Windows 8 drops Windows Media Center; Luke Pulverenti proposes rebuilding Media Browser as a standalone client-server app.
- January 2015: Emby LLC is formed in Cornelius, North Carolina.
- March 2015: Media Browser is officially rebranded as Emby.
- September 2018: Version 3.5.3 closes the source of the main server build.
- December 2018: Emby announces the closed-source 4.x line; Jellyfin forks within days.
- 2019-2026: Emby continues as a private company, investing in native apps and steady server updates.
FAQ
Who created Emby?
Emby traces back to Luke Pulverenti and Eric B. Reed (“ebr”), who rebuilt the existing Media Browser plugin as a standalone client-server media server starting around 2012-2013. Emby LLC was formally founded by the two of them in January 2015.
Was Emby originally called Media Browser?
Yes. It launched under that name in December 2008 as a Windows Media Center plugin and kept it until the March 2015 rebrand to Emby.
Is Emby free?
The core server is free to install and stream from. Features like hardware-accelerated transcoding, DVR, and offline sync require an Emby Premiere subscription: $4.99 a month, $54 a year, or $119 for a lifetime license.
Is Emby open source?
Not anymore. Emby Server was fully open source under GPLv2 through most of its early years as Emby, then closed the main server build with version 3.5.3 in September 2018. Jellyfin is the actively developed, fully open-source fork of that earlier codebase.
For the setup itself (Docker, NAS installs, how it stacks up day to day), the Emby app fiche and Jellyfin vs Emby comparison pick up where this history leaves off.