Linear vs Asana: which one fits your team in 2026
Linear vs Asana compared on October 2026 prices, engineering versus cross-functional work, MCP servers and AI, with a cost table for teams of 5 to 25.
On this page
Linear is built for software teams: issues, cycles, triage and pull requests, kept fast and opinionated. Asana is built for work that crosses departments: marketing launches, operations, approvals, portfolios and goals. If most of your work ends in a merged pull request, choose Linear. If most of it ends in a launch, a campaign or a signed-off deliverable, choose Asana.
This comparison uses prices and features checked on each vendor's own site in October 2026. We make a third product, Atrix AI, which appears once, near the end. The rest is about Linear and Asana, including where each one is clearly the better choice.
The short answer
- Pick Linear if your team is mostly engineers and product people, you work in cycles, and you want issues to move on their own as branches and pull requests change.
- Pick Asana if your work involves several departments, you need timelines, portfolios, goals, forms and approvals, and many of the people involved will never open a code editor.
- Some companies run both: engineering in Linear, everyone else in Asana. That works, at the cost of two bills and two places to look.
Built for different work
Linear: engineering first
Linear's core objects are issues, projects and initiatives, and work moves in cycles, its word for sprints. Triage is a separate inbox where a team reviews incoming issues, from Slack, Sentry or people outside the team, before they enter its workflow. Issues can be accepted, declined, marked as duplicates or snoozed.
The GitHub integration is the main reason engineering teams choose it. Put an issue ID in a branch name or pull request title and the two are linked. Team-level automations then move the issue's status as the pull request opens and merges, so nobody updates tickets by hand. There is a GitLab integration for merge requests too. On Business, Linear adds Insights (analytics on any stream of work), Linear Asks (turning workplace requests into issues) and customer requests.
What Linear does not try to be is a general work tool for a marketing or finance team. It is possible to use it that way, but the vocabulary, issues and cycles and triage, assumes software.
Asana: cross-functional first
Asana organises tasks into projects and shows them as lists, boards and calendars on every plan, with timeline and Gantt views from Starter. Forms, custom fields, reporting dashboards and unlimited automations are also on Starter. Advanced adds portfolios, goals, resource management, approvals and proofing, and time tracking.
That set is aimed at managers coordinating several teams: seeing every project in a portfolio, tying work to company goals, and checking who has capacity. Starter also includes unlimited free guests, which helps when agencies or freelancers need to see a project.
Asana does have a GitHub integration that shows a pull request's status on a task, but its workflow is not built around branches, cycles and triage the way Linear's is.
Pricing as of October 2026
| Linear | Asana | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free: unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues | Personal: up to 2 users |
| Entry paid plan | Basic: $10 per user per month, billed yearly; 5 teams | Starter: $10.99 per user per month billed yearly, $13.49 monthly |
| Mid plan | Business: $16, billed yearly; unlimited teams, guests | Advanced: $24.99 billed yearly, $30.49 monthly |
| Top plan | Enterprise: custom, annual billing only | Enterprise and Enterprise+: custom |
Linear's pricing page lists Basic and Business at their yearly rates only.
Monthly cost for the whole team, at yearly rates:
| Team size | Linear Basic | Linear Business | Asana Starter | Asana Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $50 | $80 | $54.95 | $124.95 |
| 10 | $100 | $160 | $109.90 | $249.90 |
| 25 | $250 | $400 | $274.75 | $624.75 |
At the entry tier the two are within 10% of each other. The gap opens at the middle tier: Asana Advanced costs about one and a half times Linear Business. Which middle tier you need is the real question. Linear's guests and private teams are on Business; Asana's portfolios, goals and time tracking are on Advanced.
The free plans are different shapes. Linear Free allows any number of members but stops at 250 issues, which a working team reaches quickly. Asana Personal allows unlimited tasks and projects but only 2 users.
MCP and AI
Both vendors run a hosted MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other clients can work with your data directly.
| Linear | Asana | |
|---|---|---|
| MCP server | Official, at mcp.linear.app/mcp | Official V2 server, at mcp.asana.com/v2/mcp |
| Access | OAuth; a separate read-only endpoint | OAuth with your Asana account |
| Built-in AI | Linear Agent and the agent platform, from Free | AI Teammates and Asana Dash, with a monthly request allowance |
| Extra AI usage | AI credits for coding sessions and Loops | AI requests at $0.50 prepaid or $0.60 pay as you go |
| Coding agents | Coding sessions with Claude Code or Codex on Business and Enterprise | Not the focus |
Linear's AI leans into code. On Business and Enterprise, Linear can start coding sessions with Claude Code or Codex from an issue, and Code Intelligence answers questions about your codebase. Triage Intelligence, also on Business, suggests where incoming issues should go. The MCP server works with Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed and others, and its read-only endpoint is useful when you want an assistant to report on work without changing it.
Asana's AI leans into coordination. AI Teammates are agents that work inside projects, break work into subtasks and leave comments for people to review. Paid plans include 5 requests per user a month, up to 50 per account on Starter and Advanced, plus AI Studio credits for building workflows. Past that, you buy requests. Asana's MCP server moved to a V2 release, and the earlier beta endpoint is deprecated, so older setup guides may point to the wrong address.
For a wider look at how project tools compare on MCP, including which ones allow writes and which plans they need, see the best MCP servers for project management.
When each one is the better pick
Linear is the better pick when:
- Engineers are most of the team and the rest are product and design.
- You want issue status to follow branches and pull requests without anyone touching it.
- A fast, opinionated workflow matters more than flexible views.
- You want AI to start coding work from an issue.
Asana is the better pick when:
- Marketing, operations, sales or client services do most of the planning.
- You need timelines, Gantt charts, portfolios and goals for managers.
- Work needs formal approvals or proofing.
- Many outside guests need to see projects without paying for seats.
Or both in one: Atrix AI
If you are a small team where the same five people write code, run launches and talk to customers, two tools can be one too many. Atrix AI puts work and projects (five views, boards and a backlog) next to docs, team chat, a calendar with booking links, a CRM and hiring, in one workspace. Its AI agent runs in Develop and Market modes, so the same agent can draft a technical plan and a launch post. Its MCP server lets Claude or ChatGPT read and update the whole workspace, under scopes you grant.
Builder is $39 a month for 5 seats with 100 AI runs; Studio is $149 a month for 15 seats with 500 runs, 20% less billed yearly. There is no free plan: a 7-day trial starts with a card.
Where Atrix is weaker, say so plainly: Linear goes further for a pure engineering team that lives in pull requests, and Asana goes further for portfolio and resource management across many departments. The Linear comparison and the Asana comparison set out each difference.
FAQ
Is Linear only for engineers?
It is designed for software teams, and its vocabulary shows it. Product and design teams use it comfortably. Marketing and operations teams usually find Asana a better fit.
Is Linear cheaper than Asana?
At the entry tier they are close: $10 against $10.99 per user per month, billed yearly. At the middle tier Linear is cheaper: $16 for Business against $24.99 for Asana Advanced.
Do Linear and Asana both have MCP servers?
Yes. Linear's is at mcp.linear.app/mcp, with a read-only endpoint. Asana's current V2 server is at mcp.asana.com/v2/mcp. Both use OAuth.
Can I use Linear and Asana together?
Yes, and some companies do: engineering plans in Linear while other teams use Asana. The cost is two subscriptions and work split across two places.
Which has the better free plan?
It depends on your shape. Linear Free suits a larger team testing the tool on a small project, since members are unlimited but issues stop at 250. Asana Personal suits one or two people, with no limit on tasks.
Sources
Checked on each vendor's own site in October 2026: Linear pricing, Linear features, Linear triage, Linear GitHub integration, Linear MCP, Asana pricing, Asana MCP server, Asana GitHub integration.