How to Migrate from Linear to Plane in 2026

Why Teams Move from Linear to Plane

Linear is an excellent product management tool — fast, clean, and developer-focused. The tradeoff is cloud-only hosting and per-user pricing that compounds as teams grow.

Linear pricing in 2026:

• Basic: $8/user/month ($96/user/year)
• Business: $16/user/month ($192/user/year)
• Enterprise: custom

For a 20-person engineering team on Linear Business: $3,840/year with no self-hosting option.

Plane (46K+ GitHub stars) is the open source alternative — same issue tracking, cycles, and sprint planning workflow with self-hosting and a Community Edition that's free for unlimited users. Most Linear workflows map directly to Plane equivalents.

This guide covers everything: auditing your Linear data, setting up Plane, running the migration, and cutting over your team.

Why Teams Leave Linear

Linear is one of the best-designed project management tools available. The keyboard shortcuts, the speed, the clean issue view — these are genuinely good. So why do teams leave?

Pricing at team scale: At $16/user/month (Business plan), a 25-person engineering team pays $4,800/year. At 50 people, it's $9,600/year. The cost compounds quickly, and unlike tools such as Jira, there's no on-premise licensing model — you're on Linear's cloud forever. For funded startups, this is manageable. For bootstrapped companies, agencies, or teams that prefer to control costs, it becomes a recurring pressure point.

No self-hosting option: Linear has no self-hosted or on-premise option and has indicated no plans to build one. Teams in regulated industries (healthcare, government, finance) or with strict data residency requirements often find this disqualifying — your issue data, sprint plans, and team communications all live on Linear's infrastructure with no alternative.

Limited workflow customization: Linear's opinionated design is a feature for most teams, but organizations with complex, non-standard workflows sometimes find it constraining. Custom fields, complex automations, and non-linear (pun intended) workflows are limited compared to tools like Jira or OpenProject.

Vendor dependency: As a VC-backed company with significant infrastructure costs, Linear's future pricing is uncertain. Several teams have migrated preemptively rather than risk a future price increase mid-growth.

For a detailed comparison before you commit to migrating, see Plane vs Linear and the full roundup of open source Linear alternatives. If you want a self-hosting walkthrough before starting the migration, how to self-host Plane covers infrastructure setup in detail.

What Transfers, What Doesn't

Before starting, understand what migrates cleanly and what requires manual work.

Migrates Well

• Issues (title, description, status, priority, labels, estimates)
• Teams and projects
• Issue history and comments
• Assignees (mapped by email)
• Labels and statuses
• Cycles (sprints) and modules

Requires Manual Attention

• Custom workflows: Linear's workflow states have custom names you've configured. Review and recreate these in Plane before migration.
• Integrations: GitHub, GitLab, Slack integrations need reconfiguration in Plane.
• Notifications: Users need to reconfigure their notification preferences.
• Linear Insights/Analytics: If you use Linear Insights reports, recreate equivalent dashboard views in Plane Analytics.
• Linear Asks: Plane doesn't have a direct Asks equivalent (customer request triage from Slack/Zendesk).

No Equivalent in Plane Community Edition

• Linear Triage Intelligence (AI-powered issue categorization)
• Linear Asks (requires Plane Pro + Slack integration for closest equivalent)
• Some Linear automation features

Step 1: Export Your Linear Data

Linear provides a data export from your workspace settings.

1. Go to Settings → Workspace → Export
2. Request a full data export (JSON format)
3. Wait for the export email (usually arrives within minutes for small workspaces, up to an hour for large ones)
4. Download the ZIP file containing your complete workspace data

The export includes issues, comments, labels, teams, projects, cycles, and member data in JSON format.

Keep this export. Even after migration, it serves as an audit trail and backup of your Linear data.

Step 2: Set Up Self-Hosted Plane

Install Plane

Plane provides an installation script that handles the full setup:

# Download and run the Plane installer
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/makeplane/plane/master/deploy/selfhost/install.sh | bash

The installer walks you through configuration interactively, setting up:

• PostgreSQL database
• Redis cache
• MinIO object storage (for attachments)
• Nginx reverse proxy
• SSL certificate (if you provide a domain)

Alternatively, use Docker Compose for more control:

services:
  web:
    image: makeplane/plane-frontend:latest
    restart: always

  api:
    image: makeplane/plane-backend:latest
    restart: always
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://plane:plane@db:5432/plane
      REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379
      AWS_S3_ENDPOINT_URL: http://minio:9000
      AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: access-key
      AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: secret-key
      AWS_S3_BUCKET_NAME: uploads

  worker:
    image: makeplane/plane-backend:latest
    command: celery -A plane worker -l info
    restart: always

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

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

  minio:
    image: minio/minio
    command: server /data
    volumes:
      - minio_data:/data

Resource requirements: 4GB RAM minimum for a team of 10-20 users. 8GB recommended for larger teams or heavy usage.

Configure Your Domain and SSL

Set WEB_URL=https://plane.yourdomain.com in your environment configuration. Plane handles SSL when deployed behind a properly configured reverse proxy.

Create Admin Account

After deployment, navigate to your Plane instance and create the first admin account. This account controls workspace settings and user invitations.

Step 3: Configure Plane to Match Your Linear Workflow

Before importing data, configure Plane's settings to match your Linear workspace structure.

Set Up Work Item States

Linear uses custom workflow states (e.g., Backlog, Todo, In Progress, In Review, Done). Plane has equivalent states — configure them to match your Linear setup before importing:

1. Go to Settings → States
2. Add your Linear workflow states with matching names
3. Mark appropriate states as Start, Unstarted, Started, Completed, Cancelled

Having matching state names simplifies the migration mapping.

Create Labels

Recreate your Linear labels in Plane:

1. Settings → Labels → Add Label
2. Match the name and color of each Linear label

Plane's import process maps labels by name — matching names reduces manual cleanup.

Set Up Priorities

Linear's priority system (Urgent, High, Medium, Low, No Priority) maps directly to Plane's default priorities. No configuration needed here.

Step 4: Invite Your Team to Plane

Invite team members before importing data so issues can be assigned correctly:

1. Settings → Members → Invite Members
2. Enter email addresses (same emails as Linear accounts)
3. Assign appropriate roles (Admin, Member, Viewer)

Plane's migration importer maps issues to users by matching email addresses. If emails don't match, issues will be imported unassigned.

Step 5: Import Linear Data into Plane

Plane provides a built-in Linear importer:

1. In your Plane workspace, go to Settings → Import/Export
2. Select Linear as the import source
3. Authenticate with Linear (OAuth) or upload your JSON export
4. Configure the mapping:
   • Source team → Plane project
   • Linear states → Plane states (verify the mapping)
   • Labels → Plane labels

Import Scope Options

Import all at once: Suitable for smaller workspaces (under 500 issues). Import everything and clean up afterward.

Import by team/project: For larger workspaces, import one team at a time. Validate each import before proceeding to the next.

Dry run first: Plane's importer can preview what will be imported without creating records. Use this to validate the mapping before committing.

What to Expect During Import

• Import speed: approximately 100-200 issues per minute
• Large workspaces (5,000+ issues) may take 30-60 minutes
• The importer shows progress with a live count
• Errors (usually from mapping mismatches) are logged and can be retried

Post-Import Validation

After import completes:

Validation checklist:
[ ] Issue count matches Linear export
[ ] Assignees mapped correctly (no unassigned issues that should be assigned)
[ ] Labels applied correctly
[ ] States mapped to correct workflow phases
[ ] Issue descriptions and comments preserved
[ ] Attachments accessible (stored in your MinIO instance)

Step 6: Reconnect Integrations

GitHub Integration

1. Settings → Integrations → GitHub
2. Install the Plane GitHub app on your organization
3. Link repositories to Plane projects
4. Verify that pull request references to issue IDs work (Plane supports PP-123 format in commit messages)

GitLab Integration

1. Settings → Integrations → GitLab
2. Enter your GitLab instance URL (supports GitLab.com and self-managed)
3. Create a GitLab Personal Access Token with api scope
4. Link GitLab projects to Plane projects

Slack Integration

1. Settings → Integrations → Slack
2. Authorize Plane to your Slack workspace
3. Configure which channels receive which notifications

Step 7: Set Up Cycles (Sprints)

Linear's Cycles become Plane's Cycles. If you import from Linear, existing cycles import with their issues. For ongoing sprint planning:

1. Go to your project → Cycles
2. Create a new cycle with your sprint cadence (1 week, 2 weeks)
3. Set start and end dates matching your sprint schedule
4. Add issues to the cycle via drag-and-drop or bulk assignment

Plane's Cycles show a burndown chart, progress ring, and issue breakdown by status — similar to Linear's sprint view.

Post-Migration: Configuring Plane for Your Workflow

Once the data is imported and validated, there's still meaningful configuration work before Plane fully replaces Linear day-to-day.

Workspace settings: Under Settings → General, configure your workspace name, logo, and URL slug. Set the default timezone for deadline calculations. Review member roles — Plane has Admin, Member, and Viewer roles, with fine-grained project-level permissions you can configure separately.

Project configuration: Each Plane project has its own settings. Set up Modules (equivalent to Linear Projects) for grouping related issues. Enable or disable the Inbox (issue triage queue) based on whether your team triages requests from external stakeholders. Configure the default assignee and default state for new issues.

Cycle configuration: Cycles are Plane's sprint mechanism. Set your recurring cadence — Plane supports weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly cycles. The burndown chart view, progress ring, and cycle analytics are similar to Linear's sprint view. Configure the default start day of week for cycle planning under Settings → Preferences.

Notification preferences: Each user should configure notification preferences individually. Plane supports in-app notifications, email digests, and Slack notifications. The default notification volume is higher than Linear's — most teams turn off some notification categories to avoid overload. Walk your team through this during the transition period.

Analytics dashboards: Set up custom Dashboards with the widgets your team uses most — cycle burndown, issue distribution by state, issues by assignee, overdue issues. Plane's analytics are similar to Linear Insights but require manual dashboard setup rather than pre-built views.

Common Pitfalls

Teams that migrate from Linear to Plane consistently encounter a few friction points worth anticipating before your transition:

Missing Linear keyboard shortcuts: Linear's keyboard-driven interface is one of its most praised features. Plane has keyboard shortcuts, but the bindings differ. C still creates an issue, but many shortcuts are in different places. Create a cheat sheet mapping Linear shortcuts to Plane equivalents for your first two weeks.

Different notification model: Linear batches and summarizes notifications intelligently. Plane's default notification behavior sends more granular notifications. Without adjusting preferences, team members often find their inboxes noisier after migration. Set notification preferences before fully switching over.

Triage vs. Inbox mental model: Linear's Triage queue and Plane's Intake/Inbox work similarly but have UX differences. Team members accustomed to Linear's triage flow need 2-3 days to internalize Plane's equivalent. Budget for a short training session on this specifically.

Linear-specific mentions in code comments and docs: Teams often have comments like // see LIN-1234 or documentation referencing Linear URLs. After migration, these become stale references. A quick codebase search for linear.app links is worth running before you cancel.

Step 8: Parallel Running Period

Don't shut off Linear immediately. Run both tools in parallel for 1-2 weeks:

1. Keep Linear read-only for reference
2. Create all new issues in Plane
3. Train the team on Plane's interface (15-30 minute overview session)
4. Address questions and missing features as they surface

Most teams find Plane's interface familiar within a day — the core issue creation, triage, and sprint planning workflow is nearly identical to Linear.

Step 9: Cancel Linear

After 2-4 weeks of successful parallel operation:

1. Ensure no critical information remains only in Linear
2. Export a final Linear backup for archives
3. Cancel your Linear subscription through Settings → Billing
4. Update any documentation or onboarding materials that reference Linear

Feature Comparison Reference

Linear Feature	Plane Equivalent	Notes
Issues	Issues / Work Items	Direct equivalent
Cycles	Cycles	Direct equivalent
Projects	Projects	Direct equivalent
Teams	Projects (each team = project)	Slight model difference
Labels	Labels	Direct equivalent
Triage	Intake	Similar concept
Insights	Analytics	Plane has analytics dashboard
Asks	No direct equivalent	Closest: Intake + Slack
Linear Docs	Pages (wiki)	Plane Pages is more capable
Linear Automations	Limited	Plane automations less mature

Cost Comparison

For a 20-person engineering team:

Platform	Annual Cost
Linear Basic	$1,920
Linear Business	$3,840
Plane Cloud (Pro)	$1,440
Plane self-hosted (Community)	$78

Self-hosted Plane on Hetzner CPX31 ($10/month, 8GB RAM) handles teams up to 50 users comfortably. Annual savings over Linear Business: $3,762.

Find More Project Management Tools

Browse all Linear alternatives on OSSAlt — compare Plane, Huly, GitLab Issues, OpenProject, and every other open source project management platform with deployment guides.

See open source alternatives to Plane on OSSAlt.