Linear open source alternatives

The one thesis that will save you a week

Linear's brand is speed. Its actual product is opinionated project management for engineering teams — sprints, cycles, projects, roadmaps, keyboard-first UX. Every open-source alternative on this page will make you decide how much opinion you want. Some (Plane) copy Linear closely. Some (Focalboard) throw the whole model out and give you flexible boards. Some (Vikunja) skip project management entirely for personal task management. So the honest question isn't "which is the Linear clone." It's do you want Linear's opinions, or do you want to build your own?

Answer that and the three projects below sort themselves in about a minute.

Why teams are leaving Linear in 2026

Three complaints keep repeating in r/ExperiencedDevs and r/selfhosted:

1. Per-seat pricing bites teams that grow. Basic is $8/user/mo. Business is $14/user/mo. A 20-person engineering org on Business is $3,360/year. Enterprise pricing is a phone call.
2. No self-host option. Linear doesn't offer one and won't. Regulated industries and privacy-first companies can't use Linear at all.
3. Data ownership is theoretical. Export is CSV per view. There's no clean way to get your entire workspace with relationships intact.

The open-source answer splits three ways: one direct clone (Plane), one flexible-boards alternative (Focalboard), and one for teams that actually want personal task management (Vikunja).

The three that matter

Plane — the direct Linear clone

Plane (54k stars, pushed within days, AGPL-3.0) is the closest project to Linear in interface and mental model. Issues, cycles (Linear's sprints), modules (Linear's projects), views, states, workflows — same primitives, laid out similarly. If your team was happy in Linear and you just want to own the data, Plane is the fastest port.

Where Plane extends beyond Linear: pages (Notion-style docs living alongside issues), analytics dashboards on the Enterprise tier, and a public roadmap surface. Where it lags: the raw keyboard-first speed. Plane is fast; Linear is faster. If your team lives in cmd+K, expect a period of adjustment.

Pick Plane if: you want Linear's model on your own infra with minimal cognitive switch. Also pick it if you were paying for Linear's Business tier — Plane self-hosted is a fraction of the cost.

Skip Plane if: the AGPL license disqualifies it for your compliance flow. The core is genuinely AGPL and the network trigger applies to hosted services built on it.

Focalboard — flexible boards, no Linear opinions

Focalboard (26k stars, MIT, last major push mid-2026) is Mattermost's project-management module. It doesn't try to be Linear. It's a Trello + Notion mashup — boards, tables, galleries, calendars, with typed properties on cards. If your team dislikes sprints and cycles and just wants a good Trello with database-like structure, Focalboard fits.

The one caveat: development pace slowed noticeably in 2025-2026 after Mattermost restructured priorities. It still works, but it's not moving fast. Fine for a stable production tool; less exciting if you want new features quarterly.

Pick Focalboard if: you want Trello + typed fields, MIT license, and a stable-not-flashy tool. Also pick it if you already run Mattermost — Focalboard integrates natively.

Skip Focalboard if: you need Linear-style sprints, cycles, or roadmaps. That's not what Focalboard does.

Vikunja — for personal task management, not team project management

Vikunja (5k stars, pushed within days, AGPL-3.0) is deliberately smaller. It's a personal task manager that scales to small teams — projects, tasks, subtasks, kanban, calendar, reminders. Written in Go, ships as a single binary, runs on essentially nothing.

If you're a solo developer or a team of 2-5 who wanted "Linear-lite for tracking my own work," Vikunja hits the target. It doesn't try to be Jira. It doesn't try to be Linear. It's Todoist with self-hosting and better structure.

Pick Vikunja if: you're solo or a very small team and Linear feels overkill for your workload.

Skip Vikunja if: your team is 10+ engineers running sprints. Vikunja is not built for that pattern.

Decision framework: pick by team size and workflow

Engineering team, 5-30 people, wanted Linear on their infra

Pick Plane. Nothing else on this list is trying to match Linear's model. Expect a week of adjustment on keyboard shortcuts.

Small team, mixed roles, likes Trello more than sprints

Pick Focalboard. Flexible boards fit teams that don't work in cycles.

Solo developer or micro-team (2-5)

Pick Vikunja. Lighter, simpler, right-sized.

Already run Mattermost for chat

Pick Focalboard. The integration is free and works.

Compliance requires MIT/Apache-only

Pick Focalboard. It's the only MIT option here.

Public product roadmap matters

Pick Plane. Its roadmap surface is closer to public-facing polish than the others.

Deploy difficulty on a $6 VPS

• Under 30 minutes: Vikunja. Single Go binary, or docker-compose. Just works.
• Under 30 minutes: Focalboard as a standalone app. Longer if you're integrating with Mattermost.
• 1-2 hours: Plane. Multi-service stack (Postgres, Redis, MinIO, backend, workers, frontend). Docs are clean but there's more to configure.

Resource footprint on a CX22 (4 GB RAM):

• Vikunja: ~150 MB RAM. Practically free.
• Focalboard standalone: ~400 MB RAM.
• Plane: ~1.5 GB RAM at rest. Fits on a CX22 with room; upgrade to CX32 if your team is heavy.

License and commercial-use notes

• Focalboard (MIT): Fully permissive. Embed anywhere.
• Plane (AGPL-3.0): Fine for internal self-hosting. If you plan to offer a modified Plane as a hosted service, the AGPL trigger obliges you to publish your changes.
• Vikunja (AGPL-3.0): Same as Plane.

Cost math (20-person engineering team, one year)

• Linear Basic, 20 users: $1,920/year
• Linear Business, 20 users: $3,360/year
• Self-hosted Plane on DigitalOcean 4vCPU/8GB Droplet: ~$576/year infra + your time
• Plane Cloud: free for small teams, paid tiers from $5/user/mo
• Self-hosted Focalboard on DigitalOcean Regular Droplet: ~$290/year infra + your time
• Self-hosted Vikunja on DigitalOcean Regular Droplet: ~$290/year infra + minimal maintenance

Migration tips (Linear to Plane)

• Plane has an official Linear importer. Test it on one project first — issues, labels, and states usually transfer cleanly; comments and file attachments need verification.
• Custom workflows in Linear need to be recreated in Plane. Screenshot your state transitions before migrating.
• Cycles and milestones don't have identical semantics. Linear's cycles are time-boxed; Plane's cycles are similar but the sprint automation differs. Verify your team's ritual translates.
• API integrations (GitHub, Slack, Jira) must be reconfigured. Plane supports the common ones but the setup is manual.
• Keyboard shortcuts differ. Give your team a printed cheat sheet for the first two weeks.
• Migrate closed issues in batch after active work is stable. No point porting three years of resolved bugs on day one.

What you shouldn't do

Don't self-host for a team of 3. Linear Free tier is generous for small teams. Plane Cloud is free too. Self-host when volume, compliance, or cost forces it.

Don't migrate mid-sprint. Wait for a natural break between cycles.

Don't expect keyboard parity on day one. Linear's speed is 5 years of muscle memory. Plane will feel slower for a week or two even when it isn't.

Final recommendation matrix

• "Engineering team wanted Linear self-hosted" → Plane
• "Team prefers Trello over sprints" → Focalboard
• "Solo or micro-team" → Vikunja
• "Already running Mattermost" → Focalboard
• "MIT license required" → Focalboard
• "Want public roadmap features" → Plane

See also

Teams that leave one SaaS usually leave a few. Related guides:

• Notion open source alternatives — for docs and specs alongside issue tracking.
• Slack open source alternatives — for the chat layer that plugs into project management.
• Segment open source alternatives — if you want to instrument your product's own analytics.

Frequently asked questions

Is Plane really as fast as Linear?

Fast, not identical. Linear's keyboard-first UX is the fruit of years of obsession over microseconds. Plane is genuinely quick and improving. If your team lives in cmd+K, expect 1-2 weeks of adjustment before the speed feels comparable.

Can I import my Linear workspace?

Yes — Plane ships an official Linear importer. It transfers issues, labels, states, and cycles reliably. Test on one project before importing your entire workspace.

Which one has the best mobile experience?

Plane has a mobile app (iOS/Android) with the core issue-tracking flows. Focalboard is web-only. Vikunja has a mobile app and works offline. If mobile matters, Plane or Vikunja.

Does Plane support GitHub / GitLab integration?

Yes — auto-linking commits and PRs to issues via a native integration. Setup is manual (create a GitHub App or PAT), but the linking works.

Are these safe for enterprise use?

Focalboard (MIT) is the least legally interesting. Plane and Vikunja (AGPL) are safe for internal use with standard AGPL caveats about hosted-service distribution. See the methodology page for how we classify licenses.

How often is the comparison data on this page updated?

GitHub metrics refresh daily. Editorial content revisits at least quarterly. The header shows the last revisited date.