Project management
Open-source alternatives to Linear, priced
1 open-source tool that can replace Linear, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Linear on the Basic tier costs $100 a month at that size.
The cheapest way to replace Linear here is Plane, at $237 a month against $100, with your own time already counted.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Linear | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plane | $12.07 | $237 | -$6,135 | hard | AGPL-3.0 |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Plane 59,255 stars
Django API, web and space frontends, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ and MinIO. A genuine Jira substitute and priced like one in RAM terms.
At 10 people it needs 5.2 GB of memory and 27 GB of disk, which fits the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $10.06 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Linear versus Plane breakdown · Plane at every team size
How the pricing was established
Linear pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.
Related
- All project management compared
- Alternatives to Jira
- Alternatives to Asana
- Alternatives to monday.com
- Alternatives to Trello
- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plane | GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | TypeScript | 16 h | 3 h a month | 59,255 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Linear?
There are 1 on this page, and every one of them is free of licence cost: they are published under AGPL-3.0. Running one is not free, though. The cheapest of them, Plane, costs $237 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Linear cost?
Linear Basic costs $100 a month at 10 people: USD 10.00 per seat per month. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host Plane?
$237 a month at 10 people. That is $10.06 for the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud, plus backups, plus 3 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before Plane is cheaper than Linear?
Never, counting $1,200 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $6,135.
Which Linear alternative is the easiest to run?
Plane, rated hard: about 16 hours to set up and 3 hours afterwards.