SPIREX vs Linear — an honest comparison

The short version

Choose Linear if interface quality, speed and a frictionless product-team workflow are what you are optimising for, and running software yourself holds no appeal. It is excellent at that and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

Choose SPIREX if you need the source code, your data in your own database, or sprint-based scrum with time tracking and reporting included. The SPIREX core is AGPL-3.0 and self-hosts on Docker Compose with your own PostgreSQL and your own S3 or MinIO bucket.

The decision is usually settled by one question before any feature comparison: does your organisation require the application and its data to run on infrastructure you control? If yes, Linear is not a candidate and the rest of this page is academic. If no, Linear's interface is a genuine advantage you should weigh seriously.

SPIREX vs Linear at a glance

The SPIREX column is specific because every line is verifiable in the public repository. The Linear column is deliberately limited to facts that do not expire — licence, deployment model and pricing shape — plus the strengths Linear is genuinely known for. Where a row is unverified it says so rather than guessing, and the note after the table explains why that is the right trade.

Why several Linear cells say "check their current feature list"

Because the alternative is worse. A comparison table is only useful if its cells are true, and the fastest way to make one useless is to claim a competitor lacks something it shipped last month. Linear releases frequently, and while researching this page the most confident sources about Linear turned out to be competing vendors' marketing blogs contradicting one another — including on something as basic as whether self-hosting exists.

So the rule here is simple: this page asserts what it can verify and points you at the vendor for the rest. A sparse competitor column costs us a few persuasive-looking checkmarks. A false one costs the credibility of every other row on the page.

• GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 — the licence covering the SPIREX core, including the network-use clause that distinguishes AGPL from GPL
• SPIREX source on GitHub — every SPIREX claim in the table above is checkable here
• The Scrum Guide — the definition of the sprint, backlog and increment that SPIREX implements, and the clearest statement of how it differs from continuous flow

Sprints versus cycles is a real difference, not branding

Linear organises work into cycles — fixed-length windows that roll forward automatically, with unfinished work carried into the next one by default. SPIREX organises work into sprints as defined in the Scrum Guide: a committed scope, a sprint goal, and an explicit completion step where carry-over is a decision rather than a default.

Neither is better in the abstract, and this is the part teams get wrong when they migrate in either direction. Cycles suit a continuous product team that wants throughput to be smooth and does not hold a ceremony around scope. Sprints suit a team that commits to a scope with stakeholders and needs the end of the sprint to mean something, because sprint-health reporting and a carry-over conversation are the mechanisms by which estimates improve.

If your team describes its work in terms of what shipped this cycle, Linear's model fits the way you already think. If it describes work in terms of what was committed and what slipped, SPIREX's model does.

Where Linear is the better choice

Stated plainly, because pretending otherwise wastes your time:

• Interface quality and perceived speed. Linear's reputation here is earned, and it is the single most common reason teams pick it. SPIREX is a conventional, competent web app; it is not in the same conversation.
• Continuous flow and kanban. SPIREX is scrum-oriented and dedicated kanban project creation is disabled in the current release. If your team does not run sprints, this alone decides it.
• Integration ecosystem, particularly the Git provider workflow of branches and pull requests moving issues automatically.
• Zero operational burden. Linear runs it for you. A self-hosted SPIREX means you own upgrades, backups and patching, and that is a real recurring cost measured in engineering hours.
• Product maturity. Linear has had years of polish on the details that only show up at the hundredth hour of use.

Where SPIREX is the better choice

Equally plainly:

• You need to self-host. If your data cannot live in a vendor's cloud — for regulatory reasons, a customer contract, or an internal policy — SPIREX self-hosts and Linear is not a standard option.
• You want the source. AGPL-3.0, public repository, forkable, and runnable indefinitely without anyone's permission.
• You run scrum properly and want sprint commitment, sprint completion and carry-over reporting as first-class concepts.
• You want worklog time tracking with per-author subtotals and CSV export included rather than added through a third-party tool.
• You are migrating off Jira and need comments, epic links, attachments and inline images to survive the move.
• Per-seat pricing is the blocker. The self-hosted AGPL core has no per-seat licence fee, and the hosted free tier covers 10 seats with no trial countdown.
• You want to bring your own AI provider rather than use a vendor-chosen model — the Anthropic API directly, or any OpenAI-compatible model via a LiteLLM proxy when self-hosted.

A note on this page

This page was written by the team behind SPIREX and you should read it as the interested party it is. Statements about Linear are deliberately general: Linear revises its product frequently, and a comparison page that quotes a competitor precisely is accurate for about a quarter. Check Linear's own site for what it does today, and treat any competitor comparison — including this one — as a starting point rather than a source of truth.