GitHub Projects vs Motion: which one fits your team?
These two barely overlap. One arranges hours on a calendar, the other is the record of what your engineers are shipping. Teams that use both are not confused, they are covering two different needs.
It turns on nothing, really. If you are weighing these against each other you are probably looking for a single tool that does both.
Pick GitHub Projects if
every piece of work is an issue, it never leaves the repo, and everybody has a GitHub login. Where it stops: no calendar, and it assumes everyone is on GitHub.
Pick Motion if
your calendar is chaotic, you mostly work alone, and you would rather software reconciled it than do it yourself. Where it stops: the plan is the algorithm’s, and the price is set for people who want that.
What it costs
For a team of 5, billed yearly: GitHub Projects does not publish a per seat price we can put in this sum, Motion is about $1140 a year, and UnaTask is €480 plus VAT.
GitHub Projects: Included with GitHub. There is no separate charge for Projects. Motion: Around $19 to $29 per seat per month billed annually, more monthly. No free plan.
Where they part company
Motion does more on 6 of them
- time blocking on a calendar
- having a plan for today
- two way calendar sync
- booking links
- turning meetings into tasks
- turning email and chat into tasks
GitHub Projects does more on 4 of them
- linking pull requests to the work
- having a free plan
- being the place the tasks actually live
- portfolio and agile reporting
Side by side
| What it does | GitHub Projects | Motion | UnaTask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time blocking on a calendar | No | Core. The blocks are placed by the algorithm, not by you. | Core |
| A plan for today and this week | No | Core | Core |
| Two way calendar sync | No | Core | Yes |
| It is the task manager itself | Core | Yes | Core |
| Dependencies and a timeline | Partly | Partly | Yes. Dependencies with a timeline that shows what is waiting on what. |
| See who has room | Partly | Partly. Team features are layered on an individual first product. | Core |
| Booking links | No | Yes | Yes |
| Meetings become tasks | No | Partly | Yes |
| Email and chat become tasks | No | Partly | Yes |
| Pull requests linked to work | Core. Issues and pull requests are the items. Nothing to link. | No | Yes |
| Docs and wiki inside | Partly. The repo wiki and markdown in the repo, not a workspace. | Partly | Partly. Docs live on a project, they are not a wiki you would run a company from. |
| Portfolio or agile reporting | Yes | Partly | Partly. Team workload and project progress, not portfolios that roll up to a board. |
| Rules that fire on their own | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI that does the work, not just the scheduling | Partly | Partly. The AI schedules the work. It does not do the work. | Yes. AI teammates you assign a task to. The work comes back on the task for review. |
| Useful before you configure it | Yes | Yes | Core |
| A free plan | Yes | No | Yes |
What should not decide it
They answer the same on 6: dependencies and a timeline, showing who has room, docs and a wiki inside, rules that fire on their own, AI that does the work rather than the scheduling and being useful before you configure it.
And where UnaTask sits
That single tool is roughly what UnaTask is aiming at: real time blocks on a calendar, with pull requests linked to the tasks they close.
It does more than both of them on dependencies and a timeline, showing who has room, turning meetings into tasks, turning email and chat into tasks, AI that does the work rather than the scheduling and being useful before you configure it.
Common questions
GitHub Projects vs Motion: which should I pick?
Pick GitHub Projects if every piece of work is an issue, it never leaves the repo, and everybody has a GitHub login. Pick Motion if your calendar is chaotic, you mostly work alone, and you would rather software reconciled it than do it yourself.
What is the biggest difference between GitHub Projects and Motion?
The clearest gap is time blocking on a calendar, where Motion does more than GitHub Projects. Underneath that, GitHub Projects is a system of record for software work, built around issues and cycles, and Motion is software that arranges your calendar for you and defends what it put there.
Is GitHub Projects or Motion cheaper?
For a team of 5, billed yearly: GitHub Projects does not publish a per seat price we can put in this sum, Motion is about $1140 a year, and UnaTask is €480 plus VAT.
What do GitHub Projects and Motion have in common?
They answer the same on 6 of our 16 axes, among them dependencies and a timeline, showing who has room and docs and a wiki inside. Those are the things that should not decide it for you.
Where does UnaTask fit against GitHub Projects and Motion?
UnaTask does more than both on dependencies and a timeline, showing who has room and turning meetings into tasks. It is free on your own and €10 per seat for a team, with every feature included. Where it does less: it is not an issue tracker with sprints and burndown, and it is not a documentation workspace.
Details checked June 2026.