If you are shopping for a Linear alternative, start with the honest part: Linear is the best issue tracker of the AI era. The speed, the keyboard craft, the command palette, the feel of the thing. That bar is real, and Radial is measured against it.

So this is not a teardown. It is a narrow claim. There is one structural thing Linear cannot do without unwinding the business its investors bought, and that one thing is the whole reason Radial exists: a flat, locked price with no meter, ever, written down as a guarantee.

What Linear does well, said plainly

Linear is fast. It is keyboard-first. Its agent story is good: third-party agents like Claude Code, Codex, and Copilot can join a workspace, get assigned issues, and open PRs, and Linear states outright that those agents do not count as billable users. So if your only question is "can my agent ride free," the answer in Linear is already yes.

We say this because it matters for the comparison. "Your agents ride free" is becoming table stakes. It is not the wedge. Anyone selling you a Radial-vs-Linear post that leads with free agents is selling you a feature both products have.

The difference is somewhere else.

The one structural gap: the meter, and the pledge against it

Here is what is metered in Linear: not seats for agents, but AI usage. Coding Sessions bill from a prepaid, USD-denominated AI credits balance. That is a per-seat price plus a usage line that climbs with how much AI work you run. It is a reasonable way to run an AI company. It is just a meter, and the meter is the thing.

Radial does not have one. The price is $50 per user, per year, flat, billed annually. Agents ride free, because every agent credential is a client of the API, not a billed seat. There are no AI credits anywhere in the product, because there is no AI in the product to meter.

And the part that makes it more than a marketing line is the Plain Software Pledge, written down and binding: the day Radial ships a copilot, meters your usage, or charges you for AI you didn't ask for, your subscription is free.

That is the asymmetry. A tracker whose growth story leans on metered AI cannot make that promise without cannibalizing the story. The moat is not a feature Linear lacks. It is a commitment Linear's cap table will not let it make.

This is not anti-AI. AI is redefining plenty of products. Your issue tracker is not one of them. The intelligence belongs to your agent, your model, your keys. Radial's job is to be the fast system of record your agent writes to, without a bill for it.

The other gap: a first-class CLI

Linear ships a hosted MCP server and a full GraphQL API. What it does not ship is a first-class command-line tool. Radial does, and that is the asymmetry worth owning.

Moving over is meant to cost a command, not a quarter. Run the import dry first to preview exactly what comes across, then run it for real:

npm i -g radial.build
radial import --from linear export.json --dry-run

Deep import brings your issues, projects, labels, comments, and history. Every command takes --json, so the same move scripts cleanly from CI. Your agent can do the same over MCP at mcp.radial.build, or you can hit api.radial.build/v1 directly with a scoped, revocable key. The developer surface is shipped, not a roadmap promise.

Where Radial is honestly behind

A fair comparison names the gaps too. Today Radial has no presence indicators, no multiplayer editing of descriptions, and no notification email beyond invites. Linear has all three. If those are load-bearing for your team, that is a real reason to wait. We would rather tell you now than lose your trust in a bake-off.

What we will not be behind on is the price and the pledge.

FAQ

Is Radial a true Linear alternative?

For the core job, yes: a fast, keyboard-first issue tracker with projects, cycles, triage, instant search, and a command palette. Where it goes further is the developer surface (a first-class CLI alongside MCP and REST) and the pricing (one flat locked number, no meter). Where it is currently behind is presence, multiplayer editing, and notification email. Pick on those specifics, not on a vibe.

Is there an open-source or self-hosted Linear alternative instead?

There are several, and they are legitimate if self-hosting is a hard requirement: Plane is the most prominent. Radial is hosted, not open-source. The trade is that you get a managed, fast tracker with one-command export, so your data is always portable even though the server is ours.

Do my coding agents cost extra in Radial?

No. Every agent credential is a client of the API, CLI, or MCP server, not a billed seat. There is no AI credit meter anywhere in the product. You pay $50 per user, per year, for the humans, and that number is locked at the rate you join.

How is the price different from Linear's?

Linear is per-seat per month plus metered AI usage (Coding Sessions, billed from an AI credits balance). Radial is a single flat $50 per user, per year, with no usage meter of any kind, and a binding guarantee that your subscription goes free the day we ever add one.

How long does migrating from Linear take?

As long as it takes to run one command. Export from Linear, then radial import --from linear export.json, with --dry-run first to preview. Issues, projects, labels, comments, and history come across in a single run.

The short version

Linear is excellent, and its agents already ride free. Radial is the alternative for the person who wants that same speed without the meter, with a real CLI, at one price that never moves, backed by a pledge that pays you if we break it.

Read the one flat number on pricing, or see what we will and won't ship in the manifesto. And if you read the threads and just wanted a good issue tracker that stays one, here is why issue tracking isn't dead.

Originally published on the Radial blog.