Jira vs Linear vs OpenProject

Written head to head: Jira vs Linear, with when to choose each side.

Compared on	Jira Free plan · from $9.70/user/mo VisitRemove	Linear Free plan · from $10/user/mo VisitRemove	OpenProject Open source · cloud from $7.25/user/mo VisitRemove
What it is	Atlassian's project and issue tracker with Rovo AI agents on paid plans and a free plan for 10 users	Issue tracking and product planning for software teams, with a built-in agent that can write code	Open-source project management with Gantt charts, agile boards and cost tracking, self-hosted or EU cloud
Free plan	Up to 10 users, unlimited goals, projects, tasks and forms, backlog, list, board, timeline, calendar and summary views, 150 automation steps per subscription per month, 2 GB storage, 100 email notifications a day, community support. No Rovo AI.	Unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues, 10MB file uploads; includes the agent platform, Linear Agent and MCP access	Community edition: free and open source, self-hosted on your own servers, no minimum users, community support; Enterprise add-ons are not included
Cheapest paid plan	$9.70/user/mo (Standard)Jira pricing	$10/user/mo billed annually (Basic)Linear pricing	$7.25/user/mo billed annually (Basic)OpenProject pricing
What it covers	$9.70 per user a month on monthly billing for users 1 to 100; lower graduated rates above 100 users (the page shows an average of $8.48 at its default of 300 users). Annual billing is priced by user tier instead, for example $2,450 a year for 16 to 25 users. Includes 25 Rovo credits and 400 automation steps per user a month, 250 GB storage.	$10 per user a month billed yearly; 5 teams, unlimited issues and file uploads, admin roles, Loops. Billed for unsuspended users. Coding sessions and Loops use prepaid AI credits on top.	$7.25 per user a month on a 1-year subscription; the 1-month period (Cloud Basic only) costs $1.25 more per user. Minimum 5 users in the cloud; users are added in steps of 5. Multi-year subscriptions get months free.
Free trial	7-day free trial of Standard or Premium; no payment information required	None stated	14-day free trial of Enterprise cloud, or a 14-day trial licence key for Enterprise on-premises
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android, CLI, API	Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, API	Web, Linux, API
Integrations (vendor's figure)	3,000+ integrations in the Atlassian Marketplace	Not stated	Integrations with Nextcloud, XWiki, OneDrive and SharePoint, GitHub and GitLab
Open source	No	No	Yes, self-hostable
Good for	Software teams planning sprints and tracking work items Organisations already using Confluence and other Atlassian products Coordinating dependencies across many teams on Premium	Software product teams planning cycles and roadmaps Engineering teams that assign issues to coding agents Startups that want an issue tracker with a usable free tier	Organisations that must keep project data on their own servers Public sector and EU organisations that need data sovereignty Classic or hybrid projects that mix Gantt planning with agile boards
Watch out for	Free plan: 10 users, 2 GB storage, 150 automation steps a month for the whole subscription and no Rovo AI Annual billing is sold in user tiers, and Enterprise is annual only and priced from 801 users Cross-project dependencies, approvals and the 99.9% uptime SLA need Premium	The free plan is capped at 250 issues and 2 teams The pricing page shows only yearly-billed prices, although the docs say monthly billing is available Coding sessions and Loops draw on a prepaid AI credit balance on top of seat fees	Paid plans have user minimums: 5 for Cloud Basic, 25 for Professional, 100 for Premium and 250 for Corporate Monthly billing is only offered for Cloud Basic, at $1.25 more per user The MCP server, SSO and team planner are Enterprise add-ons, not part of the free Community edition
Made by	Atlassian	Linear Orbit, Inc.	OpenProject GmbH

Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan, as each vendor publishes it; “What it covers” says what that price is per (a user, a channel, a brand, a number of contacts). The sources are listed on each tool's page.

Every tool in project management tools is on its category page, with the written head-to-heads on Compare.