Linear alternative

A Linear alternative for the work Linear was never meant to hold

Linear is the best issue tracker most engineers have used. This page is not going to pretend otherwise.

The short answer

Polaris is a free alternative to Linear for teams that want tasks, docs and team chat in one workspace and want AI workers to deliver some of the tasks. Linear lists Free with two hundred and fifty issues and two teams, Basic at ten dollars and Business at sixteen dollars per user per month billed annually, checked 21 August 2026. Linear is also a Polaris connection, so both can run together.

Linear Free: 250 issues, 2 teams
Linear Basic: $10 / user / month annual
Linear Business: $16 / user / month annual
Checked: 21 Aug 2026

Start with the concession, because it is large

Linear is exceptional at what it does. Keyboard-first navigation that a fast engineer never leaves, an opinionated issue model that resists the configuration rot Jira invites, cycles that create real cadence, triage that actually gets used, and a git integration that closes issues without anyone thinking about it. Teams do not merely tolerate Linear. They defend it.

So the honest framing for this page is not that Linear is worse. It is that Linear is a tracker with a per-seat price, checked on 21 August 2026 at ten dollars per user per month on Basic and sixteen on Business billed annually, with the Free plan capped at two hundred and fifty issues and two teams. Every issue in it is still waiting for a person.

The interesting question for a Linear team is not which tracker to use. It is who picks up the issues that keep sliding across cycles because they are research, writing or chasing rather than code.

Head to head

Linear prices from linear.app/pricing, checked 21 August 2026. Enterprise is annual billing only.

Linear

Polaris

Software cost

$10/user/mo Basic, $16 Business, billed annually

$0, no seats, no tiers

Free plan

250 issues, 2 teams, 10 MB uploads

Unlimited humans, tasks, workstreams and docs

Speed model

Keyboard-first, command menu, sub-second navigation

Drag-first, lanes shared between list and board, a pinned Focus lane

Planning unit

Cycles, with automatic rollover and velocity

Three time horizons: today, this week, next 30 days

Docs

Documents and project overviews

Nested doc tree, block editor, versioning, file review, comments

Team chat

Not included

Included, plus an Inbox that turns Slack messages into prefilled task suggestions

Non-engineering work

Possible, but the model is built around software issues

Workstreams for any container of work, including client and marketing work

Assignees

Humans

Humans and AI workers in the same members table

Delivery

A human moves the issue to done

An AI worker posts a comment with files and ticks acceptance criteria; a human closes it

When you should stay on Linear

The strongest stay-case in this whole cluster. Read it before anything else here.

Your engineers navigate by keyboard
Linear's command menu and shortcut coverage remove a real tax from a working day. Polaris is drag-first and does not match that, and telling a Linear-fluent engineer to use a mouse more is a genuine downgrade.
Cycles are how your team keeps its promises
Cycle discipline, automatic rollover and the velocity that comes out of it are a planning system, not a view. Teams that run on cycles should keep running on cycles.
Triage and the issue model are doing real work
Linear's opinionated model is why Linear workspaces stay clean for years while other trackers accumulate custom fields nobody can delete. That opinion is the feature.
Your git workflow depends on the integration
Branch naming, pull request linking and automatic status transitions are tight enough that engineers stop noticing them. That is a high bar to replace.

The realistic setup

Most Linear teams who try Polaris end up here rather than migrating.

Stays in Linear

Every engineering issue, cycle and project
Triage, branch links and pull request automation
The velocity and cycle reporting the team plans against
Whatever your engineers have shortcuts memorised for

Moves to Polaris

Research, writing, competitor checks and documentation upkeep
The cross-functional work that has no home in an engineering tracker
Anything you would assign to an AI worker rather than a person
The Focus lane for the three things that must not slip this week

Connect rather than migrate

Linear is in the Polaris connection catalog. Authorise it once, org-wide, and the credential is verified live and held server-side where browsers cannot read it back. An AI worker can then be briefed with Linear access as part of its skill file, and work in the issues your team already keeps.

If a full move is genuinely what you want, Linear has a documented GraphQL API and CSV export covering issues, labels, states, assignees and estimates. Cycles, triage rules and the git links do not have a counterpart in Polaris, so plan on losing them rather than moving them.

Go deeper

Linear pricing, checked August 2026

A generous free tier with two hard caps, and paid rates published on yearly billing only.

Jira vs Linear

One tool is opinionated and fast. The other is configurable and permanent. That is the whole decision.

Linear vs Shortcut

Two trackers built for engineers, disagreeing about how much structure a team should be allowed to have.

Linear vs Height

One of these two products no longer exists. The idea behind it is the interesting part.

Replacing Linear, Notion and GitHub

Three tools a technical team chose on purpose, and none of them has to move anywhere.

Connect Linear to Polaris

A Linear API key carries one person's visibility, so the account you make it on decides what every worker can see.

Questions people ask

+Should a Linear team actually switch to Polaris?

Usually not wholesale. Linear's keyboard speed, cycle discipline and git integration are hard to give up and the engineering work is better off staying. The common pattern is to connect Linear to Polaris and use Polaris for the research, writing and cross-functional work that engineers keep pushing out of the tracker.

+Does Polaris have keyboard shortcuts as good as Linear's?

No. Polaris is drag-first, with lanes shared between list and board views and a Focus lane pinned above them. If sub-second keyboard navigation is what your team optimises for, that is a real reason to keep Linear as the engineering tracker.

+What does the Linear connection let an AI worker do?

Linear is one of fourteen connections in the Polaris catalog, authorised once and stored server-side. A worker briefed with Linear access can be given work that involves reading and acting in your Linear workspace, alongside the other tools in its skill file such as GitHub and web search.

+How does Polaris pricing compare to Linear at twenty people?

Linear Business at sixteen dollars per user per month billed annually is three thousand eight hundred and forty dollars a year for twenty people, checked 21 August 2026. Polaris software for the same twenty people is zero, and the only bill is delivered agent work at roughly two dollars per human-equivalent hour. If your workers deliver nothing, you pay nothing.

+Is Polaris ready for a production engineering team?

Polaris is in free public beta with no customers and no case studies, and it does not have cycles, a query language or a git-linked issue model. Treating it as a second surface next to Linear is an honest place to start; treating it as a drop-in replacement for a shipping engineering org is not.