2026 head-to-head comparison · updated weekly

Pacer vs
Linear.

Both are good. One is faster, cheaper, and built around cycles instead of pretend sprints. Here's the side-by-side, with no marketing fluff.

Editor's pick · 2026
Pacer
Issue tracking + cycles for teams who care about throughput.
Starting at
$9/seat
G2 score
4.9 / 5
vs
Linear
Issue tracking for product teams. The original.
Starting at
$10/seat
G2 score
4.7 / 5
4 min
Avg. time-to-onboard
42%
Cheaper per seat
2.1×
Faster issue creation
14d
Free trial, no card
Feature-by-feature

The full comparison.

Across 24 features that actually matter, by category. Updated as both products ship.

Feature
Pacer
Linear
Core issue tracking
Keyboard-first navigation⌘K palette + global shortcuts
Yes·32 shortcuts
Yes·28 shortcuts
Auto-roll incomplete issuesRoll over at end-of-cycle automatically
Yes · built in
No · manual
AI inbox triageAuto-label + auto-close duplicate reports
Yes
Beta
SLA-based escalationPaging based on issue age + priority
Yes
No
Cycles & planning
Real cycle engineTwo-week cadence with velocity rollup
Yes
Sprints (different model)
Burndown + throughput chart
Yes · auto-generated
Yes · plan upgrade
Retro-from-dataAuto-generate retro doc from cycle data
Yes
No
Integrations
GitHub deep syncAuto-link branches + bidirectional PR status
Yes
Yes
Slack + Discord
Yes · both
Slack only
Figma embeds
Yes
Yes
Custom webhooksPer-action filtering + signed payloads
Yes · 22 events
Limited · 14 events
Pricing & access
Free tier user limit
10 users
10 users · 250 issues
SSO included on standard plan
Yes
No · enterprise add-on
Public roadmap on every plan
Yes
Plus + only
Security & compliance
SOC 2 Type II
Yes
Yes
HIPAA BAA available
Yes
No
BYO-key SAML
Yes · enterprise
Yes · enterprise
Real teams · real switches

What teams say after switching.

We migrated 1,200 issues from Linear in an afternoon. The cycles model maps to how we actually work, instead of how we always wished we worked.
MR
Maya Reynolds
Engineering Manager · Vercel · switched March '26
I'm a Linear power user. I still am. But our finance team built an entire customer escalation workflow in Pacer in one day, and that was the deciding vote.
SK
Sarah Kim
CTO · Anthropic-stage SaaS · switched January '26
FAQ

Questions teams actually ask.

How do I migrate from Linear?

Use our one-click importer. We pull issues, comments, attachments, labels, and assignees in under 10 minutes for orgs up to 10K issues. Larger orgs run a guided migration with our team.

Will my GitHub/Figma/Slack still work?

All your integrations re-attach automatically on import. Branch names continue to auto-link, the same way. The only thing you re-do is the Slack channel mapping.

Is there a free trial of paid features?

Yes — 14 days of the Standard tier with no credit card, then drop back to the 10-user free plan if you don't upgrade. Annual plans get 20% off and 3 months on us if you switch from Linear.

Why is Pacer cheaper than Linear?

We're a smaller team with a smaller marketing budget and we run on Cloudflare instead of AWS. We pass both differences through to you. No silly discounts that disappear at renewal.

Built for teams that
actually ship.

Migrate from Linear in 4 minutes · 14-day Standard trial · 3 months on us if you switch.