A Linear alternative for software teams
Your tracker knows what is being built. It has never once known whether Wednesday has room for it.
Why software teams use Linear
Linear sets the bar for issue tracking: fast, keyboard driven, and the GitHub integration is exactly what you would want.
Where it stops
There is no calendar in it, on purpose. Cycles tell you the fortnight. Nothing tells you the afternoon.
The week software teams actually have
The board is honest and the sprint is not, because the sprint was estimated in points and lived in hours nobody counted. Two of those hours went to a review that arrived on Tuesday, three to an incident, and the rest to meetings that were scheduled around nothing in particular. At standup everyone says they are close.
Points are not hours and the sprint knows it
Estimating in points and planning in a tool with no calendar means the commitment is made without ever looking at how much of the week was already gone.
In UnaTask: Put the work on real hours before you commit to it, so the plan fails on Monday when it is cheap rather than on Friday when it is a conversation.
Review time is real and nobody schedules it
Reviews are the work that has no ticket. They arrive, they take an hour, and they are never in the plan, which is why the plan is always wrong by the same amount.
In UnaTask: Link the pull request to the task, see its status and checks on the task, and give the review an actual block instead of hoping.
Half the work belongs to people without a GitHub login
Design, copy, support and the person who has to tell the customer are all on the critical path and none of them are in the tracker.
In UnaTask: One place where engineering work and everything around it sit on the same calendar, without asking anyone to learn a tracker.
The dependency was known and still surprised everybody
Somebody knew the API had to land before the client work started. It was in a thread.
In UnaTask: Dependencies on a timeline, so what is waiting on what is a picture rather than a memory.
On the things software teams asked about
| What it does | Linear | UnaTask |
|---|---|---|
| Time blocking on a calendar | No | Core |
| Dependencies and a timeline | Yes | Yes. Dependencies with a timeline that shows what is waiting on what. |
| See who has room | Yes | Core |
| Pull requests linked to work | Core. Strong native pull request linking, with status driven from branches. | Yes |
| A free plan | Yes | Yes |
What it costs
For a team of 5, billed yearly, Linear is about $480 a year and UnaTask is €480 plus VAT. The two are quoted in different currencies, so we have not subtracted one from the other.
Linear: Free tier, then around $8 to $14 per seat per month.
Common questions
Why do software teams use Linear?
Linear sets the bar for issue tracking: fast, keyboard driven, and the GitHub integration is exactly what you would want.
Where does Linear stop working for software teams?
There is no calendar in it, on purpose. Cycles tell you the fortnight. Nothing tells you the afternoon.
Should we leave Linear?
Not necessarily, and we would rather say so. Keep Linear if you ship software and you want the sharpest place there is to track issues and cycles. Move if the missing piece is the week itself: hours on a calendar, for everyone, before the work is promised.
Do I have to leave my issue tracker?
No, and we would not suggest it. UnaTask imports GitHub Issues as tasks and links pull requests with their status and an on merge action. Plenty of teams keep the tracker for the record and use UnaTask to plan the week around it.
Does it do sprints and burndown?
No. If burndown and velocity are what you need, a tool built for agile reporting will serve you better and we would rather say so. UnaTask is about when the work happens.
Linear details checked June 2026.