We investigate the role of surface plasmons in the electromagnetic Casimir effect at finite temperature, including situations out of global thermal equilibrium. The free energy is calculated analytically and expanded for different regimes of distances and temperatures. Similar to the zero-temperature case, the interaction changes from attraction to repulsion with distance. Thermal effects are shown to be negligible for small plate separations and at room temperature, but become dominant and repulsive at large values of these parameters. In configurations out of global thermal equilibrium, we show that the selective excitation of surface plasmons can create a repulsive Casimir force between metal plates.