Best Open-Source Linear Alternatives You Can Self-Host

Choose Plane Community Edition if your team wants a product backlog with cycles and modules. Choose OpenProject Community Edition if work packages, versions, and project roadmaps matter more. Choose Gitea if most issues belong to repositories and the team wants to bring code review and issue tracking together.

Each entry has an upstream open-source license, a documented self-host route, and issue tracking suitable for a software team. Check the exact edition you plan to install. Vendors can sell commercial editions under the same product name. The comparisons below use upstream documentation checked November 9, 2026.

Plane Community Edition for product teams

Plane groups work items into projects and gives teams cycles for time-bound work and modules for related scope. Start a pilot with the same five states you already use, one active cycle, and two modules. Give each issue a concrete acceptance criterion and a link to its old Linear record. See Plane’s project documentation.

Plane publishes the Community code under AGPL-3.0. Its edition guide distinguishes Cloud, Community, Commercial, and Airgapped. The Docker Compose page leads with Commercial and has separate Community instructions. Select the Community install deliberately, then record the version, host, storage locations, and restore procedure. See upstream repository, edition guide, and Docker Compose setup.

Plane lists a Linear importer and documents plan-based availability in workspace settings. Verify the importer in your exact installation. Check where a source project lands and whether issue links, comments, and files survive. If you switch between Community and Commercial, follow the version-specific migration guidance for both the database and uploaded files. See Linear importer, workspace settings, and edition upgrade.

OpenProject Community Edition for work packages and roadmaps

OpenProject uses work packages to represent tasks, bugs, and larger units of work. Versions can group work for a roadmap or serve as containers in its Scrum backlog setup. Before choosing it, map your current issue types, status transitions, and release groupings to a test project. The backlog’s use of versions matters if your team tracks sprint membership and release membership independently. See work packages and project FAQ.

The upstream repository identifies GPL-3.0. Community is available on your infrastructure, including Docker. The vendor also offers paid Enterprise options with additional features and services. Check the edition for the specific board behavior you need, such as whether moving a card should change a work package field. See upstream repository, Community edition, and Docker installation.

OpenProject documents CSV import for work packages and CSV, XLS, and PDF exports. Build a small field map before importing. A clean transfer of title and description still leaves questions about old IDs, assignees, attachments, and parent relationships. See CSV import and export formats.

Gitea for repository-centered work

Gitea’s open-source edition combines Git hosting with issues, pull requests, and project management. It suits teams that discuss a bug beside its reproduction, fix, and code review. Test how the team would handle design, support, or product discovery work whose home is less obvious. The public product pages distinguish the MIT edition from enhanced Enterprise and hosted offerings. See upstream repository and edition and hosting options. For a self-hosted pilot, review the installation steps and verify a restore using your own repository and database sample. Gitea binary installation · Gitea backup and restore

Treat the migration of your source code and the migration of your Linear issues as separate jobs. Determine where each issue should live, preserve its source ID in the description, and test cross-repo navigation. Start with the issue and project capabilities of the stable version you deploy. Features described in preview documentation can require a later version.

Try a migration with one representative project

Linear’s workspace issue export gives authorized users a CSV with fields such as status, project, assignee, cycle, and parent issue. Downloaded attachment files require separate handling. Use the export as a field inventory and keep the authorized source available during the pilot. See Linear export documentation.

1. Choose 15 representative issues. Include a reopened bug, a dependency, a parent with subtasks, a comment thread, and a file you can safely use in the pilot.
2. Write a mapping for status, owner, project, cycle, and release. Decide how to represent values with no direct destination field.
3. Import or recreate the sample in an isolated project. Verify counts, relationships, attribution, access, and links from an ordinary team member’s account.
4. Run a normal planning meeting in the new tracker. Ask someone to find the next action on a blocked issue and someone else to prepare the release scope.
5. Restore a backup into an isolated instance. Check a real attachment and issue history as well as the login screen.
6. Agree on a cutover date, who owns the final delta, and how to keep old issue links useful.

A small team also needs an owner for updates, backups, TLS, mail delivery, and incident response. Estimate that effort alongside hosting cost. Managed service can be worth comparing when the team has little capacity to maintain the tracker. See the broader Linear alternatives guide.

SelfManager.ai can hold a developer’s dated tasks and work notes alongside the team’s tracker. Link to the canonical issue and use the daily record to review what moved or stayed blocked. See how SelfManager works.