No, you don't. Source: I've had an account for years and am not paying anything.
> it's a PIA to setup and configure.
You add folders to a TV and Movies collection once. With Kodi, you're doing it N times, where N is the number of Kodi installs in your house.
> Once configured, don't plan on using the computer you setup the Media server on as it is always busy/ bogged down scanning files and transcoding video
As others have stated, this is not the case. My Plex server is an old Core2Duo MacBook Pro that also runs virtual machines.
No, you don't. Source: I've had an account for years and am not paying anything.
> it's a PIA to setup and configure.
You add folders to a TV and Movies collection once. With Kodi, you're doing it N times, where N is the number of Kodi installs in your house.
> Once configured, don't plan on using the computer you setup the Media server on as it is always busy/ bogged down scanning files and transcoding video
As others have stated, this is not the case. My Plex server is an old Core2Duo MacBook Pro that also runs virtual machines.