European Alternatives to Linear
Looking for a European alternative to Linear? Linear Orbit, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco, and its Terms of Service are governed by Delaware law with exclusive jurisdiction in the state and federal courts of New Castle County, Delaware.
Eleven European tools cover fast issue tracking for product and engineering teams: dedicated issue trackers and agile boards, open-source options you can host yourself, and two broader work tools, from companies in the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Spain, Germany and Lithuania.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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1
European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA or Switzerland, and processes customer data in Europe. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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2
Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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3
Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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4
Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a vendor. Paid placement can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. Editorial policy
11 European Alternatives to Linear
YouTrack
JetBrains issue tracker from Prague with agile boards, custom workflows and apps, in the cloud or self-hosted
Everia
Swedish workspace for tickets, sprints and test cases with a free plan for 3 members and €12 a member
Tenzu
Kanban from the BIRU cooperative in Paris, AGPL open source, with a pay-what-you-want hosted version
Taiga
Free and open-source agile tool with backlogs, sprints and burndown, run from Vigo, self-hostable
OpenProject
Berlin open-source tool with a free Community edition and cloud from €5.95 a user a month (25 users minimum)
Planio
Hosted Redmine from Berlin with issues, sprints and repositories, data centres in Germany, 30-day trial
Tuleap
Open-source agile and ALM platform from Enalean in France with trackers, backlogs and test management
Codecks
Berlin card-based tracker built for game teams, free for 5 users, then €6 or €9 a user a month
Teamhood
Vilnius kanban and Gantt tool from UAB Eylean with a 14-day trial and plans from €9 a licence
MeisterTask
Kanban task boards from MeisterLabs near Munich with a free plan for unlimited team members
Vikunja
Open-source task manager from Lübeck with list, Kanban, Gantt and table views, self-hosted or hosted in the EU
Key takeaways
- Linear Orbit, Inc. is a Delaware corporation in San Francisco, with Delaware law and exclusive jurisdiction in New Castle County, Delaware in its Terms of Service (section 11.10).
- YouTrack (JetBrains s.r.o., Prague) is the closest in role: a dedicated issue tracker with agile boards, workflows and a self-hosted option, under Czech law.
- Everia (Zealtouch AB, Sweden) is the nearest in shape to a modern hosted workspace: a free plan for 3 members and €12 per member after that, with free viewers.
- Tenzu (France) and Taiga (Spain) are open-source agile tools. OpenProject and Tuleap are heavier open-source platforms. Planio is hosted Redmine in Germany.
- Codecks, Teamhood, MeisterTask and Vikunja are lighter or broader task tools. They fit small teams and game studios, but they are not full replacements for an issue tracker with triage and sprints.
- We could not confirm where Linear stores your workspace, and the self-hosted tools remove that question entirely.
Why people leave Linear
Linear is the issue tracker that product and engineering teams pick when they want something fast and opinionated: issues, projects, triage and insights in one tidy app, with an AI agent (Linear Agent) on top. Its pricing page lists a Free plan (2 teams, 250 issues), Basic at $10 and Business at $16 per user per month billed yearly, and Enterprise on request, and says more than 40,000 companies use it.
It is run by Linear Orbit, Inc., a Delaware corporation in San Francisco. Its Terms of Service are governed by Delaware law, and the state and federal courts in New Castle County, Delaware have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes (section 11.10). The data processing agreement transfers personal data outside the EEA on the EU standard contractual clauses, with Irish law and Irish courts for those clauses, which is a sound mechanism but still a transfer to a US provider.
This page is about teams that build software and want the same sort of tracker from a European supplier. It is not about portfolio planning, budgets or resource management, which are on the Jira, Asana and Monday pages. Eleven European tools qualify, and they range from dedicated issue trackers to general kanban tools. You should read the "worse than Linear" lines before you choose.
- The contract is Delaware law, Delaware courts Linear's terms choose the law of Delaware and give the courts of New Castle County exclusive jurisdiction. For a company in the EU that means a dispute is argued in the United States, under US law. The DPA softens this for personal data with the standard contractual clauses under Irish law, but the commercial contract stays American. The tools on this page contract under the law of the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Germany or Spain, or in the case of Taiga, a Spanish company whose terms do not name a law.
- Where your issues are stored is not stated in what we could read We could not find a statement on linear.app about hosting your workspace in the EU. Its subprocessor list is rendered in the browser and could not be read, and its Terms and DPA describe transfers rather than regions. That does not prove it is hosted outside Europe, it means we cannot confirm otherwise. If an auditor asks where your tickets live, you will want an answer in writing from Linear. Several tools below publish theirs: Planio names German data centres in its terms, Tenzu says it is hosted in Europe, and Vikunja says its cloud is hosted in the EU.
- AI is part of the contract and may be billed by use Linear's terms say AI features fall under a separate AI Services Addendum, and that fees for AI Services may be usage-based, calculated on tokens, API calls or compute units, in addition to or instead of the subscription fee. For a team that lets agents work through the backlog, the bill can change with how much it is used. Everia publishes a fixed €12 per member and describes its assistant with a credit allowance (500 credits a month on Free).
- The self-hosting door is closed Linear is a hosted product. If your policy says the tracker must run on your own servers or in an air-gapped network, it cannot satisfy it. Six of the eleven here can run on your own infrastructure: YouTrack, Tenzu, Taiga, OpenProject, Tuleap and Vikunja, and Planio is hosted Redmine in Germany for the same reason from the other side.
What you have to replace, not just match
Start by writing down what your team actually uses in Linear: triage, projects, insights, the GitHub or GitLab link, the AI features, and the sprint rhythm you run. A sprint rhythm maps well to YouTrack, Taiga, Everia and Tuleap, which describe sprints on their own pages. Speed and feel are the things a feature list cannot tell you, so try one or two tools with the whole team on a real week of work before you choose.
Plan the move as an import and a cut-over, not a big bang. Export your issues from Linear, import them in the new tool or script it through its API, freeze the old workspace for new issues on a fixed day, and keep it readable for a month so people can still follow the links in commit messages and pull requests. Update the branch naming and the GitHub or GitLab integration at the same time.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #2 | Everia | Sweden | Flat company price from about €35/month for the whole team | EU (Sweden) |
| #3 | Tenzu | France | Free self-hosted / cloud on a pay-what-you-want model | EU (France) |
| #4 | Taiga | Madrid, Spain | Free self-hosted / cloud from about €5/user/month | EU (Spain) |
| #5 | OpenProject | Berlin, Germany | Free Community Edition / Cloud from about €5.95/user/month | EU (Germany) |
| #6 | Planio | Berlin, Germany | Free for 2 users / $25 per month for 5, $59 for 10, $125 for 20 | EU (Germany) |
| #7 | Tuleap | Saint-Alban-Leysse (Chambéry), France | Open source, free to self-host / Cloud and Enterprise pricing on request | EU (France) |
| #10 | MeisterTask | Munich area, Germany | Free tier / from about €6.50/user/month | EU (Germany) |
| #11 | Vikunja | Lübeck, Germany | Free self-hosted / €4 per month personal, €5/user/month for an organisation | EU (Germany) |
How each alternative compares to Linear
YouTrack
the dedicated issue tracker, from Prague
Best for: Software teams that want deep issue tracking, agile boards and workflows, in the cloud or on their own server
YouTrack is made by JetBrains. The JetBrains User Agreement names JetBrains s.r.o., Na hrebenech II 1718/8, 140 00 Prague 4, ID 265 02 275, as the party and says Czech law applies, with the competent Czech court deciding disputes. The privacy policy names the same company as controller, together with the associated JetBrains companies.
Its site lists agile boards, apps and workflows and an AI assistant, and offers both YouTrack Cloud and a self-hosted server. It has a try-free path, but the price table is rendered in the browser and shows prices that depend on your country, so none is quoted here.
We could not open YouTrack's own cloud terms, and we could not confirm the ownership structure of the wider JetBrains group.
What YouTrack does better than Linear
- Czech contract and Czech courts, where Linear uses Delaware law
- A self-hosted version as well as cloud
- Custom workflows and apps beyond what a fixed model allows
- A free-try path from the vendor
Where YouTrack is a step down from Linear
- More configuration to learn than a tracker with a fixed process
- We did not benchmark its speed against Linear
- Prices could not be read, so budgeting means asking or using the shop
- Cloud terms for YouTrack itself could not be opened
Standout against Linear. It is the only tool here that is a dedicated issue tracker with both a cloud and a self-hosted edition from a Czech company.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Sweden). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU-hosted.
- Source code. Closed source, as Linear is.
- Independently checked. GDPR, single DPA.
Best for: Small product teams that want tickets, sprints and test cases together, and stakeholders who can read without a seat
Everia is operated by Zealtouch AB, a Swedish limited company, and its terms say Swedish law applies. Its pricing page lists a Free plan for up to 3 members and 1 project, and Team at €12 per member per month, with viewers free on every plan (10 on Free, 25 on Team).
Team includes tickets, sprints, boards, Gantt and retrospectives, test cases and runs, knowledge pages, releases and time tracking, with GitHub and GitLab status from pull requests, SSO and an audit trail, all without gated tiers by its own account. Enterprise adds a dedicated EU instance or on-premises hosting, on request.
It is a newer, narrower company than JetBrains or OpenProject. The default hosting location of the Free and Team plans is not stated on the pages we read.
What Everia does better than Linear
- Swedish company under Swedish law, where Linear is Delaware
- A free plan for 3 members, and viewers who cost nothing
- SSO, audit trail and export are not gated by plan, by its own account
- Test cases and docs live in the same workspace
Where Everia is a step down from Linear
- Hosting location for standard plans is not stated on its pages
- The Free plan is capped at 1 project
- No founding date found on the pages we read, and a smaller ecosystem than Linear
- Dedicated EU hosting is an Enterprise request
Standout against Linear. Viewers are free, so clients, executives and support can follow work without taking a paid seat.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Europe (cloud) or self-hosted anywhere.
- Source code. Open source, where Linear is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Teams that want open source, European hosting and a simple board, and are happy to pay what they think is fair
Tenzu is published by BIRU, a SCOP ARL (a French worker cooperative with variable capital) registered at the Paris Trade and Companies Register under number 983 352 857, at 61 rue de Lyon, 75012 Paris. Its terms are governed by French law. The software is under AGPL v3.
Its site describes Kanban boards, workspaces, real-time collaborative editing, SSO (OpenID Connect, LDAP), granular permissions and a REST API. It says it is hosted in Europe and that all features are included for everyone. There is no subscription: the pricing page asks for contributions of your choosing, and BIRU says it will publish an annual financial report.
It is a simple tool. It does not claim sprints on the pages we read.
What Tenzu does better than Linear
- Open source under AGPL v3, so you can run it yourself
- French cooperative under French law, instead of a US corporation
- Hosted in Europe, by its own account
- No per-seat price, only a contribution of your choice
Where Tenzu is a step down from Linear
- A simple Kanban product, with no sprint concept described
- Terms are written in French and the French text prevails in a dispute
- BIRU does not promise a response time on support
- Young product and a smaller ecosystem than Linear
Standout against Linear. There is no seat price: you choose a contribution, and the code is open.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Spain). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Europe (cloud) or self-hosted anywhere.
- Source code. Open source, where Linear is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Cross-functional agile teams that want backlogs, sprints and burndown without paying per seat
Taiga's terms name TAIGA CLOUD SERVICES, S.L., Calle Uruguay 15, 36201 Vigo, Spain (tax ID B16358178) as the provider. Its privacy policy also lists Kaleidos Inc Sucursal en España, S.L., in Madrid, as a joint controller. The terms we read do not name a governing law, and we could not establish where the parent Kaleidos Inc is based.
Its home page describes a free and open-source agile project management tool with an intuitive interface, a self-hosted option, a sprint task board with swim-lanes per user story, burndown charts and an estimation tool.
It does Scrum and Kanban well. It does not do Linear's triage, deep GitHub linking or AI features on the pages we read.
What Taiga does better than Linear
- Free and open source, with a self-hosted option
- A real sprint and burndown model
- Spanish company for the service, where Linear is Delaware
- Described as needing no training or complex set-up
Where Taiga is a step down from Linear
- Governing law is not stated in the terms we read
- Parent company and joint controller structure is not fully clear
- Less polished and less fast than Linear, and a smaller integration set
- No AI features on the pages we read
Standout against Linear. It combines a free, open-source licence with a proper sprint board, which few tools here do.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Germany (EU) or self-hosted.
- Source code. Open source, where Linear is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Organisations that want one open-source tool for work packages, boards and Gantt, and may host it themselves
OpenProject GmbH, Krausenstrasse 9, 10117 Berlin, is the provider. Its Enterprise Terms of Service are governed by German law, with Berlin as the exclusive place of jurisdiction (the company may also sue where the customer is). The Community edition is open source and free.
Its pricing page lists Community as free with no minimum users and Basic at €5.95 per user per month, with a minimum of 25 users, with on-premises and cloud choices. It supports boards, Gantt charts and agile ways of working.
It is a project management platform first. For a team that wants a fast issue tracker, it is heavy.
What OpenProject does better than Linear
- Open-source Community edition, free to self-host
- German law and a Berlin court, where Linear uses Delaware
- Published per-user price for the supported edition
- Gantt, boards and standards for programme work in one tool
Where OpenProject is a step down from Linear
- Slower and heavier than Linear for issue-by-issue work
- Its pricing page lists Basic with a minimum of 25 users
- Less opinionated, so more setup
- A larger tool than a product team of ten needs
Standout against Linear. It is the one tool here whose free edition is a full, openly licensed project platform from a German company.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Germany, in an ISO 27001 data centre in the Vogtland region with backups in Frankfurt.
- Source code. Closed source, as Linear is.
- Independently checked. ISO/IEC 27001:2013 data centre.
Best for: Teams that want a proven issue tracker with repositories and a help desk, run for them in Germany
Planio is operated by Planio GmbH. Its terms apply German law with Berlin as the place of jurisdiction, and say the data centres are located within the Federal Republic of Germany. The service is hosted Redmine, with issue tracking, version control, a help desk, wikis and chat.
Its pricing page lists plans by active projects and users: Gold €49 a month for 7 projects and 10 users, Diamond €95 for 15 and 20, and Platinum €199 for 40 and 45, with VAT possibly on top, and a free 30-day trial. It supports Scrum with sprint planning and an agile Kanban-style board.
It is a mature, configurable tool. It is not trying to be fast or new.
What Planio does better than Linear
- German law, Berlin court and data centres in Germany
- Issues, repositories, help desk and wiki in one product
- A 30-day free trial and plans with published prices
- Highly configurable issue fields and role-based workflows
Where Planio is a step down from Linear
- A dated, Redmine-shaped interface, not Linear's polish
- Plans are priced by project and user bands, not per seat
- No permanent free plan listed on its pricing page, only the trial
- Subcontractors operate some components, by its own terms
Standout against Linear. It is the only tool here that names the country of its data centres in the contract itself.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Open source, where Linear is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Regulated or large engineering organisations that need trackers, requirements and test management in one platform
Tuleap's site is published by Enalean SAS, a French simplified joint-stock company with a share capital of €60,000, registered at the Chambéry Trade and Companies Register under number 531 796 621, with its registered office at Saint-Alban-Leysse. Its website is hosted by HostMe SAS in France.
It describes a platform for agile management and software development, with trackers, requirements management, agile project management, test management and DevOps features, open source, and available as cloud or on-premises, including air-gapped.
We found no public price on a server-rendered page, so none is quoted. We could not read its terms to confirm a governing law.
What Tuleap does better than Linear
- Open source and self-hostable, including air-gapped networks
- French company with the registration number on its legal notice
- Requirements, tests and trackers in the same tool
- Aimed at regulated sectors that must trace work to requirements
Where Tuleap is a step down from Linear
- Much heavier than Linear, aimed at larger organisations
- No public prices on the pages we read
- Not designed around speed or a minimal interface
- Governing law not confirmed
Standout against Linear. It supports air-gapped installations, which no cloud-only tracker can.
Codecks
a card-based tracker for game teams, from Berlin
Best for: Game studios and small creative teams that want a fast, card-and-deck way of planning
Codecks is provided by Codecks GmbH, Normannenstraße 1-2, 10367 Berlin, registered as HRB 207404 B at the Amtsgericht Charlottenburg. Its pricing page lists Free for up to 5 users and 3 projects, Plus at €6 and Pro at €9 per user per month on yearly billing.
The site describes itself as made for game devs by game devs. Its features include milestones, dependencies, due dates, time tracking, a Discord bot, and an escalating marker for cards that keep missing deadlines.
It is a good tracker for the people it is built for, and an odd fit for a SaaS product team that thinks in issues and sprints.
What Codecks does better than Linear
- German GmbH with a published register entry
- Free for up to 5 users, with prices from €6
- An opinionated card model rather than a generic task list
- Priced clearly per user with yearly billing
Where Codecks is a step down from Linear
- Built for game teams, not for general product teams
- A card-and-deck model is different from issues and sprints
- The free plan is limited to 5 users and 3 projects
- Governing law was not on the page we read
Standout against Linear. It is the one tool here designed around a specific industry's way of planning work.
Teamhood
kanban, Gantt and workload, from Vilnius
Best for: Teams that want kanban boards with time tracking and workload in the same tool
Teamhood's privacy policy names UAB Eylean (company code 305144121, Fabijoniškių str. 3B-118, Vilnius, Lithuania) as the data controller and operator of the service. Its pricing page offers a 14-day trial with no credit card, with Team at €9 and Business at €18 per licence per month for 3 or more users on yearly billing, and a Personal plan listed at $0 for up to 10 users.
Its navigation lists kanban boards, Gantt charts, time tracking and workload management, and solutions for architecture, engineering, PMO, IT and agency projects.
It is a general work management tool, not an issue tracker. The currency changes on its pricing page, so check the final price in the plan you choose.
What Teamhood does better than Linear
- Lithuanian company, inside the EU
- Kanban, Gantt, time tracking and workload in one tool
- A trial with no credit card
- Plain per-licence prices on yearly billing
Where Teamhood is a step down from Linear
- Not an issue tracker, with no sprint or triage model on its pages
- Currency on the pricing page is inconsistent
- Governing law could not be checked, because its terms page did not open
- Smaller developer ecosystem than Linear
Standout against Linear. It adds workload and Gantt planning to a kanban board, which Linear leaves out.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Germany (Frankfurt).
- Source code. Closed source, as Linear is.
- Independently checked. ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA.
Best for: Small teams that want a clean board and a free plan, not sprint-based engineering
MeisterTask is a product of MeisterLabs GmbH, Zugspitzstrasse 2, 85591 Vaterstetten, registered as HRB 161267 at the Amtsgericht München, according to its imprint. Its pricing page lists a Free plan with unlimited tasks, unlimited team members and up to 3 projects, with 20 Meister AI credits.
Paid plans exist with unlimited projects and more, but the figures on the page can depend on currency and billing choice, so none is quoted here.
It is a board-first task tool. Do not expect sprints, triage or a developer-centred workflow.
What MeisterTask does better than Linear
- German GmbH with a register number in its imprint
- A free plan with unlimited team members
- Easy to learn for non-technical colleagues
- Imports from Asana and Trello
Where MeisterTask is a step down from Linear
- Not an issue tracker, with no sprint model on the pages we read
- Free plan limited to 3 projects
- Cloud only, and the governing law could not be confirmed
- Paid prices not quoted here because they could not be confirmed
Standout against Linear. The free plan gives unlimited team members, which is rare for a hosted board.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Linear is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU for the hosted version, or wherever you run it.
- Source code. Open source, where Linear is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Individuals and very small teams who want to own their tasks, on their own server or in an EU-hosted cloud
Vikunja is published by Konrad Langenberg Software, Willy-Brandt-Allee 31A, 23554 Lübeck, Germany, a sole proprietor according to its imprint. The software is AGPLv3 and free to self-host. A paid Vikunja Cloud, made and hosted in the EU by its own account, is the alternative if you do not want to run it.
It offers list, Kanban, Gantt and table views, sharing and assigning in projects, and imports from Todoist, Trello and Microsoft To-Do. The founder says the project is bootstrapped.
It is a task manager, not an issue tracker. We list it last because it is the weakest match for Linear's job, and the strongest on ownership.
What Vikunja does better than Linear
- Open source and self-hostable, with no seat limit stated
- Hosted in the EU, by its own account, if you take the cloud
- Four views, including Gantt
- Bootstrapped and independent, by the founder's own words
Where Vikunja is a step down from Linear
- A task manager, with no sprints, triage or issue model
- A single-person company is a continuity risk
- No developer integrations comparable to Linear's
- Cloud prices not quoted here because we did not verify them
Standout against Linear. It is the only tool here operated by one person, with the code open to read.
What actually breaks when you switch
The hardest things to move are history and habit. Issue links in commit messages, pull request titles and chat threads point to Linear identifiers, and no tool here will keep them valid. Keep the old workspace readable for a month and put the old and new IDs in a spreadsheet for the important ones.
None of these tools is an exact twin of Linear's workflow, and we did not benchmark their speed. YouTrack and Everia come closest on structure, but expect a short dip in productivity while the team relearns its shortcuts.
Check the fit for the plan you need, not the headline. OpenProject's cloud Basic plan starts at 25 users, Everia's Free plan stops at 3 members and 1 project, Codecks's Free plan at 5 users, and MeisterTask's at 3 projects.
Which European tool is closest to Linear?
YouTrack is the closest in role: a dedicated issue tracker with agile boards, custom workflows and apps, an AI assistant, and a cloud or self-hosted choice, run by JetBrains s.r.o. in Prague under Czech law. Everia is closest in feel and price: tickets, sprints and boards with a free plan for 3 members and €12 per member after that.
We did not benchmark the speed of either against Linear. The honest comparison is to put a real sprint through two of them.
Can I run my issue tracker on my own server?
Yes, with YouTrack, Tenzu, Taiga, OpenProject, Tuleap and Vikunja. Tenzu, Taiga, OpenProject Community, Tuleap and Vikunja are open source, and YouTrack offers a self-hosted version alongside its cloud. Linear, Teamhood and MeisterTask are hosted services as far as their own pages show, as are Planio and Everia (Everia offers on-premises hosting on request, on Enterprise).
Self-hosting settles the question of who holds the data, but you take over upgrades, backups and security.
Which of these are free to start?
Everia has a free plan for 3 members and 1 project. Codecks is free for up to 5 users and 3 projects. MeisterTask has a free plan with unlimited team members and up to 3 projects. Tenzu is pay-what-you-want, and Taiga, OpenProject Community, Tuleap and Vikunja are free to self-host.
YouTrack, Teamhood and Planio offer a trial instead: YouTrack says "Try free", Teamhood gives 14 days with no credit card, and Planio gives 30 days.
Are any of these a poor fit for a software team?
Yes, and it is better to know up front. Vikunja is a task manager with list, Kanban and Gantt views, not an issue tracker, and it has no sprints. Codecks is built for game teams, with a card-and-deck model. MeisterTask and Teamhood are general kanban tools. They can carry a small engineering team, but you will miss triage, sprints and tight integration with pull requests.
If your team lives in sprints, backlogs and bug reports, start with YouTrack, Everia, Taiga or Tuleap.
Which one to pick
If you want a dedicated issue tracker with agile boards and workflows from a European company, YouTrack is the one to start with, and it can run on your own server. If you want something lighter with a free plan and a flat price, try Everia, and if you want open source, try Tenzu or Taiga first.
Choose OpenProject or Tuleap when the tracker is part of a wider platform for requirements, tests or programme work, and Planio when you want proven Redmine run for you in Germany. Codecks suits game studios, and Teamhood, MeisterTask and Vikunja suit small teams that think in boards and lists rather than issues and sprints.
Be realistic about the gap. Linear is a focused product with a polished interface, none of these eleven is a drop-in clone, and we did not find a one-click import from it. Switch if you want a European contracting party, a court close to home or a server you control. Keep Linear if its speed and workflow are why your team likes it, and make sure you have asked it in writing where your data lives.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a software team, YouTrack is the best answer on depth, because it is a dedicated issue tracker with agile boards, workflows and a self-hosted option under Czech law. Everia is the better choice if you want a modern, low-friction workspace with a free plan and a flat €12 per member. Tenzu and Taiga are the better choice if you want open source.
No. Linear Orbit, Inc. is a Delaware corporation with its address in San Francisco, California. Its Terms of Service are governed by Delaware law, with exclusive jurisdiction in the state and federal courts of New Castle County, Delaware.
Its pricing page lists Free ($0, 2 teams and 250 issues), Basic at $10 per user per month and Business at $16 per user per month, both billed yearly, and Enterprise on request. Its terms add that AI features are covered by a separate addendum that can bill on usage.
Everia lists a Free plan for up to 3 members and 1 project, and Team at €12 per member per month, with viewers free. OpenProject has a free Community edition and lists Basic at €5.95 per user per month, with a minimum of 25 users. Codecks lists Free for up to 5 users, Plus at €6 and Pro at €9 per user per month on yearly billing.
Planio lists Gold at €49 per month for 7 projects and 10 users, Diamond at €95 for 15 projects and 20 users, and Platinum at €199 for 40 projects and 45 users, with VAT possibly on top and a 30-day free trial. Teamhood lists Team at €9 and Business at €18 per licence per month for 3 or more users on yearly billing, and a 14-day trial with no credit card.
YouTrack is made by JetBrains. The JetBrains User Agreement names JetBrains s.r.o., with its registered office at Na hrebenech II 1718/8, 140 00 Prague 4, Czech Republic (ID 265 02 275), and says the agreement is governed by Czech law with Czech courts. We could not open YouTrack's own cloud terms, so the entity comes from that agreement and the JetBrains privacy policy. Its prices are rendered in the browser and depend on your country, so we quote none.
Taiga's terms name TAIGA CLOUD SERVICES, S.L., in Vigo, Spain, with the tax ID B16358178. Its privacy policy also names Kaleidos Inc Sucursal en España, S.L., in Madrid, as a joint controller. We could not establish where the parent Kaleidos Inc is based, and the terms we read do not name a governing law, so the contractual jurisdiction is not confirmed.
Tenzu (AGPL v3), Vikunja (AGPLv3), Taiga (it describes itself as free and open source), OpenProject (its Community edition), and Tuleap (open source). Planio runs Redmine as a hosted service. YouTrack, Everia, Codecks, Teamhood and MeisterTask are commercial products.
It is a replacement for a simple kanban workflow, not for sprint-based engineering work. MeisterTask is run by MeisterLabs GmbH, registered at Vaterstetten near Munich (HRB 161267), and has a free plan with unlimited team members and up to 3 projects. We found no sprint or triage model on its pages, so use it for small teams that work with a board.
YouTrack lists an AI assistant among its features, and Everia describes an assistant with 500 credits a month on its Free plan. Teamhood and MeisterTask also mention AI on their pricing pages, with MeisterTask giving 20 Meister AI credits on Free. None of the open-source tools market AI as a core part of the product, so check the current docs if that matters.
There is no one-click migration from Linear to all of these. OpenProject lists a Jira migration but we found no Linear importer on its page, and Vikunja lists imports from Todoist, Trello and Microsoft To-Do, not from Linear. Plan to export your issues and import them through a CSV or the new tool's API, and test the import with one team first.
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