Linear vs Sunsama: which one fits your team?
One tells a person what their Tuesday is. The other tells a company what shipped. Engineers commonly run both and retype the same work into each.
It turns on which one you are willing to make the source of truth, because the retyping is the real cost.
Pick Linear if
you ship software and you want the sharpest place there is to track issues and cycles. Where it stops: there is no calendar, so it never says when the work happens.
Pick Sunsama if
the morning ritual is the thing that keeps you honest, and you plan on your own. Where it stops: it is single player, and it pulls tasks in rather than holding them.
What it costs
For a team of 5, billed yearly: Linear is about $480 a year, Sunsama is about $1200 a year, and UnaTask is €480 plus VAT. Between the two of them Linear is $720 a year cheaper at that size.
Linear: Free tier, then around $8 to $14 per seat per month. Sunsama: Around $20 per month billed annually, up to $25 monthly. No free plan.
Where they part company
Linear does more on 9 of them
- linking pull requests to the work
- being the place the tasks actually live
- dependencies and a timeline
- showing who has room
- portfolio and agile reporting
- rules that fire on their own
- having a free plan
- docs and a wiki inside
- AI that does the work rather than the scheduling
Sunsama does more on 5 of them
- time blocking on a calendar
- having a plan for today
- two way calendar sync
- turning email and chat into tasks
- being useful before you configure it
Side by side
| What it does | Linear | Sunsama | UnaTask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time blocking on a calendar | No | Core | Core |
| A plan for today and this week | Partly. Cycles and lists, not a day laid out against hours. | Core | Core |
| Two way calendar sync | No | Yes | Yes |
| It is the task manager itself | Core | Partly. Tasks are mostly pulled in from the tools you already run. | Core |
| Dependencies and a timeline | Yes | No | Yes. Dependencies with a timeline that shows what is waiting on what. |
| See who has room | Yes | No. Built for individuals. There is no shared team picture. | Core |
| Booking links | No | No | Yes |
| Meetings become tasks | No | No | Yes |
| Email and chat become tasks | Partly | Yes | Yes |
| Pull requests linked to work | Core. Strong native pull request linking, with status driven from branches. | No | Yes |
| Docs and wiki inside | Partly | No | Partly. Docs live on a project, they are not a wiki you would run a company from. |
| Portfolio or agile reporting | Yes | No | Partly. Team workload and project progress, not portfolios that roll up to a board. |
| Rules that fire on their own | Yes | No | Yes |
| AI that does the work, not just the scheduling | Partly | No | Yes. AI teammates you assign a task to. The work comes back on the task for review. |
| Useful before you configure it | Yes | Core | Core |
| A free plan | Yes | No | Yes |
What should not decide it
They answer the same on 2: booking links and turning meetings into tasks.
And where UnaTask sits
UnaTask removes the retyping on the planning side: the task carries its pull request, and the hours to do it sit on the same calendar.
It does more than both of them on showing who has room, booking links, turning meetings into tasks and AI that does the work rather than the scheduling.
Common questions
Linear vs Sunsama: which should I pick?
Pick Linear if you ship software and you want the sharpest place there is to track issues and cycles. Pick Sunsama if the morning ritual is the thing that keeps you honest, and you plan on your own.
What is the biggest difference between Linear and Sunsama?
The clearest gap is time blocking on a calendar, where Sunsama does more than Linear. Underneath that, Linear is a system of record for software work, built around issues and cycles, and Sunsama is a place to decide, on purpose, what today actually contains.
Is Linear or Sunsama cheaper?
For a team of 5, billed yearly: Linear is about $480 a year, Sunsama is about $1200 a year, and UnaTask is €480 plus VAT. Between the two of them Linear is $720 a year cheaper at that size.
What do Linear and Sunsama have in common?
They answer the same on 2 of our 16 axes: booking links and turning meetings into tasks. Those are the things that should not decide it for you.
Where does UnaTask fit against Linear and Sunsama?
UnaTask does more than both on showing who has room, booking links 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.