Compare · AgileHero vs Linear
Linear app alternative for agile teamsKeep the speed. Add the ceremonies.
Linear is a fast, design-led product tracker — its homepage leads with teams and agents. But the ceremonies around the work — retrospectives, a collaborative estimation round, whiteboards — do not appear in its published feature set (checked July 29, 2026). AgileHero pairs a quick kanban board with those rituals built in, in one product.
A five-person team, per month
- Retros, whiteboards, estimation ritualIncludedNot listed
- Velocity & flow chartsIncludedNot listed
- AI agent access (MCP)49 toolsEvery plan
Linear prices and features from linear.app, captured July 29, 2026 — yearly-billed rate; a monthly-billed price did not appear on the page we captured. AgileHero pricing is current. Tiers compared: AgileHero Pro vs Linear Business.
The short answer
AgileHero is a Linear app alternative built for the team layer of agile work. Linear is a fast, design-led tracker — issues, cycles, Triage, and an agent platform on every plan — and its Documents come close to a team wiki, with version history and inline comments. What its published feature list does not cover (checked July 29, 2026) are the ceremonies: estimation as a team round rather than a field, retrospectives, a shared whiteboard, and velocity or cumulative-flow charts. AgileHero puts those in the same product as the board — estimation poker on every card, zero-setup retros, an infinite whiteboard that turns stickies into real cards, a drag-and-drop roadmap, and delivery metrics.
For a five-person team the whole suite is $39 a month on AgileHero Pro. Linear Business — the closest tier by published features — was $80 a month at its yearly-billed rate when we captured linear.app on July 29, 2026 (5 × $16 per user), with agent runs metered separately against prepaid AI credits. The first two AgileHero seats are free forever, and every Pro module has a 14-day trial with no credit card.
AgileHero vs Linear, feature by feature
Tiers compared: AgileHero Pro vs Linear Business — the lowest Linear tier whose published claims include an analytics surface (Insights), and the closest match by published features. Every Linear fact below comes from Linear's own published pages, captured July 29, 2026. Linear's per-seat prices are the yearly-billed rates shown on its pricing page.
| Capability | AgileHero Pro | Linear Business |
|---|---|---|
| Kanban board | ✓Boards and backlog with rich cards — checklists, files, threaded comments, @mentions | ◐Issues, projects, cycles, initiatives and Triage on every plan (captured July 29, 2026) |
| Dedicated backlog | ✓A dedicated backlog beside every board | ◐Triage on every plan — the nearest published analogue (checked July 29, 2026) |
| Team estimation | ✓Estimation poker on every card — hidden votes, shared reveal — free on every plan | ◐Point-based estimates with Fibonacci, Exponential, Linear, and T-Shirt scales; no collaborative voting round described (docs, July 29, 2026) |
| Retrospectives | ✓Six ready-made columns, shared timer, dot-voting, action items carried to the next retro | —Not named on the pages we track (checked July 29, 2026) |
| Whiteboards | ✓Infinite whiteboard with live cursors — one click turns stickies into cards, frames into epics | —Not in Linear's published feature list (checked July 29, 2026) |
| Roadmap | ✓Drag-and-drop timeline, weekly and quarterly zoom, initiative and per-person capacity views | ✓“Planning — Set the product direction with projects and initiatives”; “from roadmap to release” (linear.app/features, July 29, 2026) |
| Delivery metrics | ✓Velocity and cumulative-flow charts from real board movement, plus overdue / blocking / stuck lists | ◐“Insights — Instant analytics” from Business up; Dashboards from Enterprise up; no velocity or cumulative-flow charts named (checked July 29, 2026) |
| Team wiki | ✓Nested pages, discussions pinned to the exact passage, full version history | ✓Documents — version history and inline comments anchored to selected text (docs, July 29, 2026) |
| Agent execution & AI credits | —No built-in coding agent — connect your own assistant over MCP; daily agent calls are included in the plan | ✓Coding sessions from Basic up, loops from Business up — both metered against prepaid AI credits (July 29, 2026) |
| AI agent access (MCP) | ✓49 tools across the whole product — 500 calls per user per day on Free, 5,000 on Pro, always inside your permissions | ✓Official MCP server on every plan including Free — OAuth 2.1; tools for issues, projects, and comments (docs, July 29, 2026) |
| Integrations | —No integration directory yet — external integrations are next on our roadmap; today MCP connects any AI assistant | ✓API and webhook access on every plan, including Free (checked July 29, 2026) |
| Price — 5 seats, monthly | $39 — $12 base + 3 × $9; first two seats always free | $80 at the yearly-billed rate (5 × $16); no monthly-billed price on the page we captured; AI credits extra for agent runs |
Where AgileHero is the better fit
The ceremonies are built in
Estimation poker on every card — hidden votes, a shared reveal, one-click apply — and zero-setup retro boards with a shared timer, dot-voting, and carried-forward action items. Linear records estimates as a field with four scales; a collaborative voting round and retrospectives are not in its published feature list (checked July 29, 2026).
Ideas become work in one click
Sketch on the whiteboard, then convert: sticky → card, frame → epic, a whole mind map → an epic with cards — onto your own board, in the same product. No whiteboard or infinite-canvas surface appears in Linear's published feature list (checked July 29, 2026).
Agile charts, not generic analytics
Velocity and cumulative-flow charts grow from real board movement — no report setup, no data entry — plus three attention lists: overdue, blocking, stuck. Linear's pricing gates “Insights” to Business and up and “Dashboards” to Enterprise, and names no velocity or cumulative-flow charts (checked July 29, 2026).
One agent surface for the whole product
One personal token gives an AI assistant 49 tools — cards and epics, but also whiteboards, retros, the roadmap, the wiki, and metrics — always bounded by your own permissions, with 500 calls per user per day on Free and 5,000 on Pro included. Linear's MCP is also on every plan; its documented tools cover issues, projects, and comments, and its agent runs draw on prepaid AI credits (captured July 29, 2026).
A price that stays small
$12 a month plus $9 a seat after the first two free — $39 for five people, versus $80 on Linear Business at its yearly-billed rate (captured July 29, 2026), with no prepaid credit balance to keep topped up.
Where Linear is the better fit
An agent platform woven through the product
MCP access, the agent platform, and Linear Agent are all listed in the Free column of Linear's pricing page (captured July 29, 2026), agents do not count as billable users, and named third-party agents include Cursor, OpenAI Codex, Devin, and Sentry. Seven of its eight most recent changelog entries touch AI or agents. If delegating issues to coding agents is your workflow, Linear is ahead here.
A free plan with unlimited members
Linear's Free plan is “Free for everyone”: unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues, 10MB uploads (captured July 29, 2026). Its cap is issues rather than people — far more seats than our two free ones, which are deliberately deep rather than wide.
Documents that come close to a wiki
Linear's Documents publish version history and inline comments anchored to selected text (docs, captured July 29, 2026) — genuinely close to our wiki surface. If a light docs layer next to the tracker is all you need, this is near parity, not a gap.
A tracker shaped around shipping code
Diffs, Linear's code-review surface, is on every plan including Free, and the product is organized into five named stages — Intake, Plan, Build, Diffs, Monitor. Its changelog notes that Linear Agent “can now write code using Claude Code and Codex” (captured July 29, 2026). AgileHero does not review code.
Linear pricing at a glance (July 2026)
As captured from linear.app on July 29, 2026: Free is $0 — "Free for everyone" — with unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues, and 10MB file uploads; Basic is $10 per user/month and Business is $16 per user/month, both shown at the yearly-billed rate; Enterprise is custom-priced, annual billing, contact sales. A monthly-billed price did not appear on the page we captured, so the yearly-billed rate is the one we can compare.
Linear also has a second pricing axis: AI credits. Coding sessions (Basic and up) and loops (Business and up) are metered against a prepaid, workspace-level credit balance — a $10 minimum ad-hoc purchase, a $50 minimum auto-reload threshold, and published per-task costs from $0.07–$0.20 for a loop run without a coding session up to $5 and beyond for complex tasks (linear.app docs, captured July 29, 2026).
The comparison that matters for an agile team of five: Linear Business comes to $80 a month at the yearly-billed rate, and retrospectives, whiteboards, and velocity charts do not appear in Linear's published feature list at any tier (checked July 29, 2026). AgileHero Pro is $39 a month for the same five people — $12 base plus $9 for each seat beyond the two free ones — with those modules included and no credit balance to top up. Yearly billing is roughly two months cheaper, every Pro module has a 14-day trial without a card, and if you ever cancel, your data stays — premium modules are paywalled on downgrade, never erased.
Does Linear cover the agile ceremonies?
Partly, and it is worth being precise. Estimates are genuinely built in: Linear's documentation describes point-based estimates with Exponential, Fibonacci, Linear, and T-Shirt scales, and cycles and projects use them to calculate effort statistics (captured July 29, 2026). Documents come close to a team wiki too — version history plus inline comments anchored to the exact text. What the pages we track do not describe is the ritual around the numbers: a collaborative estimation round with hidden votes and a shared reveal, retrospectives, a whiteboard, and velocity or cumulative-flow charts are all absent from Linear's published feature list as of July 29, 2026.
AgileHero's answer is one product where the board, the estimation session, the retro, the whiteboard, and the delivery metrics share the same cards, the same epics, and the same real-time sync — so the sprint is one workflow, not a tracker plus a set of side tools.
Leaving Linear — a short checklist
Linear's pricing page shows yearly-billed rates, and Enterprise is annual billing with a custom price (captured July 29, 2026) — so check your renewal date before it rolls over. Cancellation steps are outside what we track for Linear — find where billing is managed in your workspace and check it while your plan is active. If your workspace carries a prepaid AI-credit balance ($10 minimum ad-hoc purchase, $50 minimum auto-reload), note where it stands. Take copies of anything you need while your plan is active.
Starting on AgileHero takes minutes: a working workspace, project, and board exist the moment you sign up. Recreate your columns and open issues as cards as you go — or connect an AI assistant over MCP and let it create and organize the structure for you. There is no one-click Linear import today; we would rather say that plainly than surprise you. Two seats are free forever, and the 14-day Pro trial needs no credit card.
Common questions
Is AgileHero a good Linear app alternative for agile teams?
If your team wants the ceremonies in the same product as the board, it is the exact case AgileHero is built for: a fast kanban board plus estimation poker on every card, zero-setup retrospectives, an infinite whiteboard, a roadmap, delivery metrics, and a wiki. If what you want is a design-led issue tracker shaped around shipping code — cycles, Triage, code-review Diffs, and an agent platform on every plan — Linear remains a strong choice, and its published pages back that up (captured July 29, 2026).
How much does AgileHero cost compared to Linear?
AgileHero Pro is $12 per month plus $9 per month for each seat beyond the first two — $39 per month for a five-person team, with yearly billing roughly two months cheaper. Linear Business was listed at $16 per user per month billed yearly when we captured linear.app on July 29, 2026 — $80 per month for the same five people at that rate, and agent runs draw separately on prepaid AI credits. A monthly-billed price did not appear on the page we captured. Tiers compared: AgileHero Pro vs Linear Business.
Does Linear have estimation and retrospectives?
Estimates, yes: Linear's documentation describes point-based estimates with Exponential, Fibonacci, Linear, and T-Shirt scales, used by cycles and projects for effort statistics (captured July 29, 2026). What the pages we track do not describe is a collaborative estimation round — votes hidden, then revealed together — and retrospectives are not named on those pages either. AgileHero includes both: estimation poker free on every plan, and retrospective boards with a shared timer, dot-voting, and action items carried to the next retro on Pro.
Do both Linear and AgileHero have an MCP server?
Yes, and neither is paywalled. Linear's official MCP server is available on every plan including Free, with OAuth 2.1 sign-in and tools for finding, creating, and updating issues, projects, and comments (captured July 29, 2026); its agent runs — coding sessions and loops — are metered against prepaid AI credits. AgileHero's MCP server is also on every plan: 49 tools spanning boards, whiteboards, retrospectives, the roadmap, the wiki, and delivery metrics, with 500 agent calls per user per day on Free workspaces and 5,000 on Pro.
We shortlisted Linear as a Jira alternative — where does AgileHero fit?
Linear's homepage calls it “The product development system for teams and agents” (captured July 29, 2026), with the lead “Purpose-built for planning and building products.” AgileHero aims at the same dislike of heavy tooling from a different angle: it keeps the tracker simple and puts the team layer — estimation poker, retrospectives, whiteboards, a roadmap, and delivery metrics — inside the same product, at $39 a month for five seats. If the tracker itself is the whole requirement, weigh Linear seriously; if the ceremonies around it are the pain, compare us.
Can I import my Linear issues into AgileHero?
There is no one-click Linear import today — honestly. Recreating your columns and opening cards is an afternoon of work, or you can hand the structure to an AI assistant connected over MCP and let it create and organize the cards. Whatever you build stays yours: if you ever downgrade, premium modules are paywalled, never erased.
Is there a free plan?
Yes — two seats, free forever, and deliberately feature-rich: boards, backlog, rich cards, estimation poker, real-time sync, and MCP agent access with 500 calls per user per day are all included. Linear's Free plan is bigger on people — “Free for everyone”, with unlimited members, 2 teams, and 250 issues (captured July 29, 2026) — so if headcount is the constraint, Linear's free tier is the more generous one. Every AgileHero Pro module has a 14-day trial, no credit card required.
How this comparison was made
Tiers compared: AgileHero Pro ($12/month base + $9/month per seat beyond the first two) vs Linear Business ($16 per user/month at the yearly-billed rate). Every Linear claim on this page comes from Linear's own published pages, captured July 29, 2026 — nothing is inferred from reviews, rankings, or usage data. The 5-seat total excludes Linear's AI credits, a separate prepaid axis for agent runs. AgileHero claims describe the shipped product.
Sources
- https://linear.app/pricing
- https://linear.app/
- https://linear.app/features
- https://linear.app/docs/estimates
- https://linear.app/docs/documents
- https://linear.app/docs/mcp
- https://linear.app/docs/ai-credits
- https://linear.app/developers/agents
- https://linear.app/agents
- https://linear.app/changelog
- https://linear.app/customers
Page history
- Aug 9, 2026 — Page published. All Linear facts captured July 29, 2026.
Last verified: August 9, 2026. Linear is a trademark of its respective owner. AgileHero is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Linear.
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