# Linear 148 Hacker News commenters recommended Linear and 66 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 4 years (6 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A fast, keyboard-driven issue tracker that people find far simpler than Jira and well suited to AI agent workflows; critics report creeping complexity, memory use and hard-to-find features. ## Why people recommend it - Fast and snappy (8 comments): "Linear is the best web app I have ever seen, period. It is also the best bug-tracker I've ever used." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48438082)) "The keyboard shortcuts and speed make a real difference when you're context-switching constantly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47462127)) "Been incredibly happy with the speed, featureset, and pace of new (good) features in Linear." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47085819)) - Simpler, better alternative to Jira (4 comments): "Linear is great, it's what JIRA should've been. Basically task management for people who don't want to deal with task management." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46508460)) "Seemed laggy as most web apps, but in contrast to JIRA it's lightspeed of course." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48438525)) "By far and away, linear. The task tracking features you actually use, it's fast" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48266129)) - Strong AI agent integration (7 comments): "i outline what i want in linear, have claude synthesize into a plan and we iterate until we're both happy, then i let it rip. works great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47550964)) "I like the 'copy prompt' feature, it's super simple but makes it just a few seconds to go from issue -> claude session." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48195188)) "Linear's agent is integrated into the workflow where the planning actually happens and is multi-player by design." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47507938)) - Keyboard shortcuts for everything (3 comments): "The keyboard shortcuts and speed make a real difference when you're context-switching constantly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47462127)) "It it fully keyboard navigatable and has shortcuts for pretty much everything. It's great!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826122)) "Doing that speedily and with keyboard shortcuts in Linear is almost enjoyable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457986)) ## What people warn about - High memory and CPU use (3 comments): "Running Slack, Figma, Linear, Spotify, Discord, Obsidian, and others at the same time consumes a lot of memory for no good reason." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46876271)) "Slack, Linear, and Notion decided to each have a "Helper (Renderer)" process that uses 700MB of RAM each" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48729902)) "I’ve actually found Linear to be quite slow? There was a week where it would also spin at 100% CPU" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48437940)) - Hard-to-find basic features (2 comments): "I had to get a colleague to show me how to add a due date to an item because it's hidden in the nav pane." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48439242)) "every time I use it I flail around for ages trying to figure out how to mark a task completed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47086355)) - Awkward for agentic workflows (3 comments): "Most work-planning tools today (Jira, Linear, etc.) are DB-centric and form-driven, which makes them awkward for agentic workflows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46881396)) "somewhat more cohesive experiences but it still feels like tooling for agent teaming is quite lacking" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375923)) "doesn't seem to read the AGENTS.md file, follow along on a PR nor let you configure a sandbox" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48562531)) - Growing complexity over time (2 comments): "Linear was simple and fast. Unfortunately it is has become an example of creeping complexity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442448)) "we are back at square one when everybody uses Linear and they start going the fate of GitHub" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352530)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Jira](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jira.md): 128 recommend - [git-bug](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-bug.md): 36 recommend - [GitHub Issues](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-issues.md): 29 recommend - [Epiq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/epiq.md): 19 recommend - [JetBrains YouTrack](https://hackerapproved.com/p/youtrack.md): 14 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://linear.app/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Linear", https://hackerapproved.com/p/linear/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).