20 best Linear alternatives in 2026
The issue tracker engineering teams like, now with agents you can assign issues to. Below: what to switch to, scored on the six things that matter, and an honest word on when to stay.
Linear
Whatever the delegated agent runs
TODO for AI
Every providerWhy people look past Linear
Linear is the closest thing to what we are building, from the opposite direction. It already has the thing the agent vendors do not: a real shared board, where a teammate and an agent can hold the same item, where state is queued, started, blocked and done, and where everyone can see it. Since the agent platform shipped you can assign an issue to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Devin or twenty others, and Linear Agent runs Claude Code or Codex in Linear's own managed sandbox.
What it will not do is leave engineering. An issue is a thing that ends in a diff. There is no shell on your laptop, no logged-in browser, no inbox, no ad account, and the model is whatever the agent you delegated to happens to run. Linear is mostly the dispatcher, and Linear Agent only narrows the worker to Claude Code or Codex in Linear's sandbox.
Invoices, outreach, ad accounts and support triage have no shape in Linear. The agent integrations are coding agents, every one of them.
Assigning an issue to Devin or Cursor means another subscription, another vendor's models and another permission model. Linear Agent avoids the second bill by running Claude Code or Codex in Linear's own sandbox, which is still not a machine you control.
Linear never gets a shell on your box or a session in your Chrome. Anything that needs your logins goes back to a human.
Most of this list solves a different problem
Linear gets the task done.
TODO for AI organises the whole company’s work.
Linear answers one question: how do I get this task done, by handing it to somebody else's coding agent? So do the others — Cursor inside the editor, Claude Code in one person's session, Lindy by asking its assistant.
We answer a different one: where does the work live? One board per project, and a project for each part of the company — engineering, marketing, ops, finance, one per client. Your colleagues work on it. So do your agents, as many as you want to run, each with its own model, tools and permissions. Items carry the people who worked them and the agent that ran them, and the board filters by person, so what the company has in flight is one screen instead of a Slack thread.
That is not a team plan bolted onto an AI tool. It is the product. The agents are how items get closed; the board is what the company runs on.
All options in one table
TODO for AIWeb, desktop, CLI, voiceEvery providerPartlyFree29
OpenHandsWeb, CLIAny providerYesFree (self-host)22
OpenClawChat apps, CLI, desktopAny provider (BYOK)YesFree21
Hermes AgentChat apps, CLI, desktop appAny provider (BYOK or Nous Portal)YesFree20
NotionWeb, desktop, mobileClaude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, you pickNoFree19
ClickUpWeb, desktop, mobileClickUp Max, Claude, GPT, Gemini, you pickNoFree18
AiderTerminalAny provider (BYOK)YesFree16
LindyWeb builderMost major models, you pickNo$30/mo16
GitHub CopilotIDE, GitHub.com, CLIOpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, moreNoFree16
OpenCodeTerminalAny provider (BYOK)YesFree15
ClineIDE extensionAny provider (BYOK)YesFree15
OpenAI CodexTerminal, ChatGPT web, IDEOpenAI onlyPartly$8/mo14
CursorIDEMulti-vendor, meteredNo$20/mo14
Claude CoworkClaude Desktop, web, mobile, Chrome side panelAnthropic onlyNo$20/mo14
AsanaWeb, desktop, mobileVendor managedNoFree14
Claude CodeTerminal, IDE, desktop app, webAnthropic onlyNo$20/mo13
ChatGPTWeb, desktop, mobileOpenAI onlyNoFree12
ManusWebVendor-selectedNo$20/mo11
LovableWeb builderVendor-selectedNo$25/mo11
Base44Web builderVendor-selected, choice on paid plansNo$16/mo11Linear (baseline)Web, desktop, mobileWhatever the delegated agent runsNoFree15How we scored
Each tool gets 0 to 5 on six dimensions: model freedom, long-running work, beyond code, openness, team & permissions, cost predictability. The sum is the score in the table. Facts (pricing, interface, models, licence) were checked against each vendor's public pages on 2026-09-22.
The ratings are ours, and we are on the list, so weigh them accordingly. Every fact behind a rating is checkable, and where a competitor is the better pick for a job we say so in its card.
Each alternative, honestly
TODO for AI
Every model from every vendor on one flat plan, a persistent cloud VM, your real Chrome, and CLI tools for marketing, SEO, email and ops. 82% on Terminal-Bench 2.1. And one board your team and your agents share, with a project for each part of the company.
- + The work on your board is not only code
- + You want the agent to have a shell on your machines and a session in your Chrome
- + You want to pick the model per item instead of inheriting the delegated agent's
- + You want one bill instead of a tracker plus an agent subscription
- - Your work is engineering issues and cycles, and you want the best tracker for them
- - You are happy for the doing to happen in another vendor's agent
- - You need the maturity: triage, projects, roadmaps, integrations
OpenHands
Open-source autonomous software agent with a self-hosted or cloud workspace.
- + Open source
- + Sandboxed workspace per task
- + Multi-model
- - Focused on software tasks
- - Self-hosting is real ops work
- - No real-browser or business integrations
OpenClaw
Open-source personal agent that runs on your own machine and answers in WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack and 20+ other chats, bring your own keys.
- + Fully open source, MIT, run by a non-profit foundation
- + Any model through your own keys, including local Ollama
- + Reachable from the chat apps you already use
- + State, memory and credentials stay on your hardware
- - You run and secure it: gateway, exposed ports, plugin supply chain
- - Per-token bills per provider, no pooled plan
- - No hosted machine, so it stops when your box does
- - You install, configure and update it yourself
Hermes Agent
Open-source self-improving personal agent from Nous Research: skills it writes itself, memory that persists, reachable from 20+ chat apps.
- + Fully open source, MIT, 30k+ GitHub stars
- + Writes and refines its own skills from experience, memory persists across sessions
- + Any model via own keys, OpenRouter or Nous Portal
- + Cron scheduler, subagents, seven sandbox backends
- + Migrates from OpenClaw in one command
- - You host, secure and update it, or rent a VPS
- - No hosted machine bundled; cloud browsers are third-party providers you configure
- - No persistent task list, work lives in chat threads and cron jobs
- - No team roles or pooled usage
Notion
The docs-and-databases workspace, with Custom Agents that run on schedules and triggers inside it.
- + Custom Agents pick their own model: Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok or Auto
- + Run on schedules and on triggers, in Notion or from Slack, without anyone watching
- + Shareable like teammates, with full access, edit or run-only permissions
- + MCP connections to 18+ apps plus custom MCP servers an admin enables
- + Activity logs showing what the agent did and when
- - No shell anywhere: not your machine, not a cloud VM, not a sandbox
- - Reach is the MCP connections an admin wired, plus optional web browsing
- - Cannot act in your logged-in browser session
- - Credit metering on top of seats, so a busy agent is a second bill
ClickUp
All-in-one work platform whose Super Agents can be @mentioned and assigned tasks like teammates.
- + Super Agents behave like team members: @mention them in comments, assign them tasks
- + Pick the model or let Brain route between Claude, GPT and Gemini
- + Autopilot Agents scoped to Spaces and Lists, on recurring schedules
- + MCP both ways, so external agents can work the workspace too
- + The board, docs, chat and whiteboards are already one product
- - No direct shell and no machine: agents act on workspace objects and connected tools
- - Two subscriptions stacked, workspace seat plus AI seat, then credits on top
- - Agent capability is a list of skills rather than an open-ended runtime
- - Notoriously heavy product if all you wanted was a list
Aider
The original open-source pair-programming CLI, git-native, any model.
- + Very token efficient
- + Git-native commits
- + Runs anywhere Python runs
- - Pair-programming, not autonomous: you drive each step
- - No browser, no cloud, no scheduling
- - Code-only
Lindy
No-code AI teammates for business workflows: email, CRM, meetings and support, built from triggers and steps.
- + The strongest no-code builder here for business workflows
- + Large catalogue of triggers and app integrations
- + You pick the model per task, and computer use is included
- + Credits pool across the whole workspace
- - Built around defined workflows rather than open-ended work
- - Credits are an abstraction, and the rate changes per plan
- - Lives in its own cloud: no shell on your machine, no repo
- - Closed source
GitHub Copilot
GitHub's coding agent: completions in the editor, a cloud agent that takes an issue and opens a pull request.
- + The widest model picker in a coding agent: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Moonshot, Microsoft
- + The cloud agent works from an issue and opens a pull request, in GitHub's infrastructure
- + Copilot CLI runs in your own terminal with per-command approval
- + Cheapest serious entry at $10, and a real free tier
- + Third-party agents, Claude Code and Codex, run inside the same GitHub surface
- + Already installed wherever your code already is
- - Everything is repo-shaped: the output is a pull request or it does not exist
- - The cloud agent runs on GitHub's runners, so long-running work leaves your machine
- - No business tooling, no inbox, no ad account, no logged-in browser
- - Premium requests are metered per model, so heavy agent use bills on
OpenCode
Open-source terminal coding agent, bring your own keys, any provider.
- + Fully open source
- + Any model via your own keys
- + Fast terminal UI
- - Pay-per-token bills you have to track yourself
- - No cloud machine, no scheduling, no team features
- - Code-only
Cline
Open-source VS Code agent extension, bring your own keys, plan and act modes.
- + Open source
- + Any model
- + Good MCP support
- - Runs only while VS Code is open
- - Token bills add up fast on frontier models
- - Code-only
OpenAI Codex
OpenAI's coding agent: an open-source CLI plus a cloud sandbox inside ChatGPT.
- + Strong token efficiency on GPT-5.6
- + CLI is open source
- + Cloud tasks run in parallel from the ChatGPT UI
- - OpenAI models only
- - Cloud sandbox is ephemeral and repo-scoped
- - No browser automation, no business tooling
Cursor
A VS Code fork with built-in AI chat, unlimited tab completion and repo-scoped cloud agents.
- + Best-in-class inline editing and tab completion
- + Multi-model
- + Familiar VS Code experience
- - Cloud agents start from a repo and end at a pull request, so non-code work has no shape to run in
- - Agent usage is metered by model, so bills track habits not headcount
- - No business tooling: the browser is there to verify your app, not to run your accounts
Claude Cowork
Anthropic's agentic mode: hand Claude a multi-step task and it works on its own, including scheduled runs in the cloud.
- + Real autonomy on multi-step work, with scheduled runs on Anthropic's servers
- + Built-in browser automation plus Claude in Chrome
- + Claude-grade output quality
- + Included on every paid plan, no extra tool to buy
- - Anthropic models only, so no second model checks the first
- - Runs in Anthropic's sandbox, not on your own machine or in your repo
- - Extends through MCP connectors rather than any CLI you install
- - Closed source
Asana
Work management with AI teammates and a no-code studio for building cross-system workflows.
- + 30+ prebuilt AI teammates you can assign tasks to
- + AI Studio builds multi-step workflows across CRM and other connected systems, no code
- + Strong at intake, classification, routing and status reporting
- + Mature permissions, reporting and enterprise governance
- - Beyond the prebuilt teammates you design the workflow first, so one-off unpredictable tasks have nowhere to go
- - No shell, no machine, no browser session
- - You do not choose the model
- - AI requests are capped per user and then billed individually
Claude Code
Anthropic's coding agent, tied to Claude models and Claude subscription tiers.
- + Excellent code quality on Opus and Sonnet
- + Mature terminal UX, hooks, subagents
- + Chrome extension for browser tasks
- + Cloud sessions and routines run scheduled work without your machine
- - Anthropic models only, no second opinion
- - Cloud sessions are repo-shaped: GitHub repos, allow-listed network, claude/ branches
- - Built for repos, not for marketing, email or ops workflows
- - Closed source
ChatGPT
The default AI assistant, with agent mode, deep research and connectors bolted onto the chat product.
- + The best general assistant for everyday questions
- + Deep research and agent mode are genuinely good
- + Connectors into Drive, email and calendars
- + A usable free tier, and the cheapest paid entry at $8
- - OpenAI models only
- - Caps are per feature, so you hit a wall in one place while credit sits unused in another
- - Agent mode runs in OpenAI's sandbox, not on your machine or in your repo
- - No shell on your machine, no CLI tools, and its browser is not your logged-in Chrome profile
Manus
A general-purpose cloud agent that browses, researches and produces documents.
- + Good at research and document generation
- + Cloud browser built in
- + No setup
- - No shell, files or repos on your own machine
- - Credit pricing is hard to predict
- - You do not choose the model
- - Closed
Lovable
A prompt-to-app builder: describe a web app, get a hosted React front end with a built-in backend, edited by chat.
- + Fastest path from a sentence to a deployed web app
- + Backend, auth, database and hosting are built in
- + Two-way GitHub sync, so the code is yours
- + Workspace roles, per-member credit caps and SSO on Business
- - Builds its own apps: it cannot work in a codebase it did not generate
- - Every edit is a credit, and a wrong turn costs the same as a right one
- - The model is picked for you
- - Nothing outside the app: no browser, no email, no ops
- - Closed source
Base44
Wix-owned prompt-to-app builder with backend, auth and hosting included, metered in messages and integration credits.
- + Cheapest entry in the category at $16
- + Backend, auth, database and hosting included on the free plan
- + Model selection and GitHub sync on paid plans
- + Wix ownership gives it a long runway
- - Builds its own apps: no way into an existing codebase
- - Two credit meters, so a busy app spends integration credits after you stop prompting
- - Nothing beyond the app: no browser, email or ops
- - Closed source, Wix-hosted