Choose Plane if: You want the closest Linear UI equivalent with minimal learning curve Your team is 5-50 developers migrating from Linear You want a focused tool (project management only, no chat/docs) You need the most polished import from Linear Choose Huly if: You want to consolidate multiple SaaS tools into one self-hosted platform Your team currently pays for Linear + Slack + Notion separately Built-in video office and real-time collaboration matter You're comfortable with more complex init

Best Open Source Linear Alternatives to Self-Host 2026

TL;DR

Linear costs $8/user/month (Standard) to $16/user/month (Plus). For a 10-person engineering team, that's $960–1,920/year for project management software. Plane is the closest open-source equivalent to Linear's interface and workflow — 30K+ GitHub stars, free to self-host, and actively maintained. Huly is the more ambitious option, replacing Linear plus Slack, Notion, and project tracking in one platform. Both self-host cleanly on Docker Compose.

Key Takeaways

Linear pricing: $8/user/month (Standard) — $0 for open-source alternatives
Plane: 30K+ GitHub stars, AGPL-3.0, direct Linear feature parity, Docker Compose self-host
Huly: 18K+ GitHub stars, EPL-2.0, all-in-one (Jira + Slack + Notion in one), self-hostable
Plane advantage: closest to Linear UX, best for teams migrating directly from Linear
Huly advantage: consolidates 3-4 SaaS tools into one — higher setup complexity, bigger reward
Both: free self-hosted, active development, no per-seat fees
Linear import: Plane has CSV import; GitHub sync works on both

Why Teams Leave Linear

Linear is excellent. The complaints that push teams toward alternatives are almost entirely about pricing and data control:

Linear pricing (2026):
  Free:     5 members, 250 issues — too limited for real teams
  Standard: $8/user/month — $960/year for 10 people
  Plus:     $16/user/month — $1,920/year for 10 people
  Enterprise: Custom (SSO, compliance, dedicated support)

Pain points:
  - No self-host option — cloud-only
  - Per-seat pricing scales linearly (obviously) with team growth
  - Data residency concerns — Linear's servers (US/EU), no on-prem
  - No full data export — issues, cycles, and metadata export but attachments are limited

Feature Comparison

Feature	Linear	Plane	Huly
GitHub Stars	—	30K+	18K+
License	Proprietary	AGPL-3.0	EPL-2.0
Self-host	❌	✅	✅
Cloud option	✅	✅	✅
Issues/tasks	✅	✅	✅
Cycles/Sprints	✅	✅ (Cycles)	✅
Kanban board	✅	✅	✅
Roadmap/Gantt	✅	✅	✅
Sub-issues	✅	✅	✅
Priority/Labels	✅	✅	✅
Custom workflows	✅	✅	✅
GitHub sync	✅	✅	✅ (deep)
Docs/Wiki built-in	⚠️ Basic	✅ Pages	✅ Notion-like
Team chat	❌	❌	✅ Slack-like
Video office	❌	❌	✅
CRM module	❌	❌	✅
AI features	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited	✅ AI transcription
UI quality	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐

1. Plane — Best Direct Linear Replacement

GitHub Stars: 30,000+ | License: AGPL-3.0 | Self-host: ✅

Plane's UI and workflow are the closest to Linear of any open-source alternative. If your team is switching from Linear and wants minimal cognitive adjustment, Plane is the answer.

What Plane Calls Things (vs. Linear)

Linear term    →  Plane term
Issues         →  Issues
Cycles         →  Cycles (same name)
Projects       →  Projects
Views          →  Views
Teams          →  Workspaces/Projects
Milestones     →  Modules
Triage         →  Intake

Self-Host Plane

# Quick start (development/testing)
git clone https://github.com/makeplane/plane.git
cd plane
./setup.sh
# Follow the prompts — sets up Docker Compose automatically
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d

# Production docker-compose.yml (simplified)
version: "3.8"
services:
  web:
    image: makeplane/plane-frontend:stable
    command: node web/server.js
    restart: unless-stopped

  api:
    image: makeplane/plane-backend:stable
    command: ./bin/docker-entrypoint-api.sh
    environment:
      SECRET_KEY: ${SECRET_KEY}
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://plane:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@plane-db/plane
      REDIS_URL: redis://plane-redis:6379/0
      EMAIL_HOST: ${EMAIL_HOST}
      EMAIL_HOST_USER: ${EMAIL_HOST_USER}
      EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD: ${EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD}
    depends_on:
      - plane-db
      - plane-redis
    restart: unless-stopped

  worker:
    image: makeplane/plane-backend:stable
    command: ./bin/docker-entrypoint-worker.sh
    environment:
      SECRET_KEY: ${SECRET_KEY}
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://plane:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@plane-db/plane
      REDIS_URL: redis://plane-redis:6379/0
    depends_on:
      - plane-db
      - plane-redis
    restart: unless-stopped

  beat-worker:
    image: makeplane/plane-backend:stable
    command: ./bin/docker-entrypoint-beat.sh
    depends_on:
      - plane-db
      - plane-redis
    restart: unless-stopped

  plane-db:
    image: postgres:15-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: plane
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: plane
    volumes:
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  plane-redis:
    image: redis:6-alpine
    volumes:
      - redisdata:/data

  plane-minio:
    image: minio/minio:latest
    command: server /data
    environment:
      MINIO_ROOT_USER: ${AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID}
      MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY}
    volumes:
      - uploads:/data

  nginx:
    image: nginx:alpine
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

volumes:
  pgdata:
  redisdata:
  uploads:

# Generate your .env file
cat > .env << 'EOF'
SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -hex 16)
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=plane
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 16)
WEB_URL=https://plane.yourdomain.com
EOF

# Start
docker compose up -d

# Create admin user
docker exec plane-api-1 python manage.py create_admin_user \
  --email admin@yourdomain.com \
  --password yourpassword

Plane Intake (Triage)

One of Plane's standout features is Intake — a triage queue where bug reports and feature requests arrive before being triaged into issues. This mirrors Linear's Triage mode directly.

Intake workflow:
  1. External form or API submits item to Intake
  2. Team reviews in Intake queue
  3. Accept → converts to Issue (with full metadata)
  4. Decline → archives with optional response
  5. Duplicate → links to existing issue

2. Huly — Best All-in-One Replacement

GitHub Stars: 18,000+ | License: Eclipse Public License 2.0 | Self-host: ✅

Huly is more ambitious than Plane. It aims to replace your entire collaboration stack — Linear for project tracking, Slack for team chat, Notion for docs, and Calendly/motion for scheduling — in one self-hosted platform.

What Huly replaces:
  Linear:   ✅ Issue tracking, cycles, roadmaps
  Slack:    ✅ Channels, threads, DMs, reactions
  Notion:   ✅ Wikis, databases, docs
  Calendly: ✅ Meeting scheduling
  Zoom/Meet: ✅ Built-in video office (Chunter)
  HR tools: ✅ Basic HR module

Self-Host Huly

git clone https://github.com/hcengineering/huly-selfhost.git
cd huly-selfhost

# Copy and edit environment config
cp .env.template .env
nano .env
# Set: HOST_ADDRESS, SECRET, MINIO_SECRET, etc.

# Start the stack
docker compose up -d

# Huly available at http://localhost:8083

# Huly services (simplified overview):
services:
  account:    # Authentication service
  front:      # Web UI
  transactor: # Real-time collaboration engine
  collaborator: # Document collaboration
  santeam:    # Team management
  love:       # Video office (WebRTC)
  mongodb:    # Database
  minio:      # Object storage
  elastic:    # Full-text search
  rekoni:     # Content extraction
  nginx:      # Reverse proxy

Huly's architecture is more complex than Plane (11+ services vs. Plane's 6), but the Docker Compose handles all of it automatically.

Huly's GitHub Integration

Huly's GitHub sync is deeper than most alternatives:

Bi-directional sync:
  - Create issue in Huly → creates GitHub issue
  - Comment on GitHub → appears in Huly
  - PR merged → closes linked Huly issue
  - GitHub project board ↔ Huly project board

Setup:
  1. Install Huly GitHub App on your org
  2. In Huly: Settings → Integrations → GitHub
  3. Select repositories to sync
  4. Map Huly projects to GitHub repos

Migrating from Linear

Export from Linear

# Linear: Settings → Import/Export → Export
# Downloads a ZIP with:
#   issues.csv     — all issues with metadata
#   comments.csv   — all comments
#   attachments/   — file attachments

# Structure:
# Issue ID, Title, Description, Status, Priority,
# Assignee, Labels, Cycle, Created, Updated

Import to Plane

# Plane → Workspace Settings → Imports → Linear
# Upload the CSV export
# Map fields: Linear Status → Plane State, etc.

# Plane's importer handles:
#   - Issues with descriptions
#   - Labels → Labels
#   - States (Todo/In Progress/Done) → mapped automatically
#   - Priority levels
#   - Assignees (if emails match)

# Manual check after import:
#   - Custom fields (may need recreation)
#   - Sub-issues (may need relinking)
#   - Attachments (download from Linear, re-upload to Plane)

Cost Comparison

Tool	Cost (10 users)	Self-host	Data control
Linear Standard	$960/year	❌	❌
Linear Plus	$1,920/year	❌	❌
Plane Cloud Pro	$960/year	✅	✅
Plane self-hosted	$120-300/year (VPS)	✅	✅
Huly Cloud	Free/$4/user	✅	✅
Huly self-hosted	$120-300/year (VPS)	✅	✅

Both Plane and Huly require a VPS with at least 4GB RAM for a production self-hosted deployment. A Hetzner CPX31 (~$8/month, 4 vCPU, 8GB RAM) handles 10-50 users comfortably.

Which to Choose

Choose Plane if:

You want the closest Linear UI equivalent with minimal learning curve
Your team is 5-50 developers migrating from Linear
You want a focused tool (project management only, no chat/docs)
You need the most polished import from Linear

Choose Huly if:

You want to consolidate multiple SaaS tools into one self-hosted platform
Your team currently pays for Linear + Slack + Notion separately
Built-in video office and real-time collaboration matter
You're comfortable with more complex initial setup

Full list of open-source Linear alternatives at OSSAlt.

See open source alternatives to Linear on OSSAlt.

Monitoring and Access Control

Project management tools contain sensitive business data — feature roadmaps, customer conversations, and internal priorities. Self-hosted project management needs authentication and backup discipline from day one.

Authelia adds two-factor authentication and SSO in front of your project management tool without application-level changes. Combined with a reverse proxy, it limits access to authenticated users and logs all access attempts.

Uptime Kuma monitors availability so you know when the service is down before your team reports it in Slack. For teams that depend on project management for daily work, unplanned downtime has real productivity cost — monitor it like any other critical service.

n8n enables webhook integrations between your self-hosted project management tool and the rest of your stack — syncing tickets with GitHub issues, posting Slack notifications on status changes, or automatically creating tasks from customer support conversations.

Network Security and Hardening

Self-hosted services exposed to the internet require baseline hardening. The default Docker networking model exposes container ports directly — without additional configuration, any open port is accessible from anywhere.

Firewall configuration: Use ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) on Ubuntu/Debian or firewalld on RHEL-based systems. Allow only ports 22 (SSH), 80 (HTTP redirect), and 443 (HTTPS). Block all other inbound ports. Docker bypasses ufw's OUTPUT rules by default — install the ufw-docker package or configure Docker's iptables integration to prevent containers from opening ports that bypass your firewall rules.

SSH hardening: Disable password authentication and root login in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Use key-based authentication only. Consider changing the default SSH port (22) to a non-standard port to reduce brute-force noise in your logs.

Fail2ban: Install fail2ban to automatically ban IPs that make repeated failed authentication attempts. Configure jails for SSH, Nginx, and any application-level authentication endpoints.

TLS/SSL: Use Let's Encrypt certificates via Certbot or Traefik's automatic ACME integration. Never expose services over HTTP in production. Configure HSTS headers to prevent protocol downgrade attacks. Check your SSL configuration with SSL Labs' server test — aim for an A or A+ rating.

Container isolation: Avoid running containers as root. Add user: "1000:1000" to your docker-compose.yml service definitions where the application supports non-root execution. Use read-only volumes (volumes: - /host/path:/container/path:ro) for configuration files the container only needs to read.

Secrets management: Never put passwords and API keys directly in docker-compose.yml files committed to version control. Use Docker secrets, environment files (.env), or a secrets manager like Vault for sensitive configuration. Add .env to your .gitignore before your first commit.

Production Deployment Checklist

Before treating any self-hosted service as production-ready, work through this checklist. Each item represents a class of failure that will eventually affect your service if left unaddressed.

Infrastructure

Server OS is running latest security patches (apt upgrade / dnf upgrade)
Firewall configured: only ports 22, 80, 443 open
SSH key-only authentication (password auth disabled)
Docker and Docker Compose are current stable versions
Swap space configured (at minimum equal to RAM for <4GB servers)

Application

Docker image version pinned (not latest) in docker-compose.yml
Data directories backed by named volumes (not bind mounts to ephemeral paths)
Environment variables stored in .env file (not hardcoded in compose)
Container restart policy set to unless-stopped or always
Health check configured in Compose or Dockerfile

Networking

SSL certificate issued and auto-renewal configured
HTTP requests redirect to HTTPS
Domain points to server IP (verify with dig +short your.domain)
Reverse proxy (Nginx/Traefik) handles SSL termination

Monitoring and Backup

Uptime monitoring configured with alerting
Automated daily backup of Docker volumes to remote storage
Backup tested with a successful restore drill
Log retention configured (no unbounded log accumulation)

Access Control

Default admin credentials changed
Email confirmation configured if the app supports it
User registration disabled if the service is private
Authentication middleware added if the service lacks native login

Conclusion

The decision to self-host is ultimately a question of constraints and priorities. Data ownership, cost control, and customization are legitimate reasons to run your own infrastructure. Operational complexity, reliability guarantees, and time cost are legitimate reasons not to.

The practical path forward is incremental. Start with the service where self-hosting provides the most clear value — usually the one with the highest SaaS cost or the most sensitive data. Build your operational foundation (monitoring, backup, SSL) correctly for that first service, then evaluate whether to expand.

Self-hosting done well is not significantly more complex than using SaaS. The tools available in 2026 — containerization, automated certificate management, hosted monitoring services, and S3-compatible backup storage — have reduced the operational overhead to something manageable for any developer comfortable with the command line. What it requires is discipline: consistent updates, tested backups, and monitoring that alerts before users do.

The self-hosted project management category benefits from the same dynamics that drove teams to Linear in the first place — frustration with slow, bloated tools that prioritize features over performance. Plane, Huly, and Twenty all prioritize fast, keyboard-driven interfaces. The difference from Linear is operational: you own the data and the uptime. For teams that have already invested in self-hosted infrastructure (monitoring, backups, deployment platform), adding a self-hosted project management tool costs one afternoon of setup and roughly 30 minutes/month of maintenance. For teams new to self-hosting, the operational learning curve may not be worth the feature or cost savings.

When evaluating self-hosted project management tools, test the import path from your current tool first. Migrating issue history, attachments, and team structure is the friction point that most affects adoption. Plane and Huly both support CSV import from Linear and Jira. Run a test import with a subset of your existing data before committing to a full migration — the import quality varies between tools and project structures.

The SaaS-to-Self-Hosted Migration Guide (Free PDF)