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Project Management & Collaboration

Linear

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Linear Orbit, Inc. · linear.app

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Data Protection Officer

Weighted verdict

Reads the DPA before the feature list. Optimizes for GDPR posture: EU hosting, subprocessor exposure, deletion guarantees. Rejects anything that cannot answer where the data lives.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Data Protection Officer

Collaboration depth

How this is scored

How much real multi-person project work the tool carries: shared planning, assignments, dependencies, workload, comments, guest access.

0 — A personal task list; a second user has no defined place in it.

3 — Tasks can be shared and assigned, but planning stays per-person — no shared timeline, workload or dependency view.

5 — Solid shared projects with assignments, comments and at least one team-level planning view; gaps appear in cross-project or capacity planning.

8 — Team-level planning is first-class: cross-project views, workload/capacity, dependencies, guest or client access with sane permissions.

10 — Handles the full span from two freelancers to a structured department in one model — planning, capacity, permissions and client involvement all without workarounds.

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The Data Protection Officer

Real team-level and cross-team planning exists — initiatives with a lead team, roadmaps, private teams, and guest accounts with limited workspace access. But the registry shows no workload/capacity view and no dependency management, and guest access detail beyond 'limited workspace access' is unevidenced, so it sits above 5 and short of 8. 2 4 1

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Reporting

How this is scored

Whether the tool can answer questions about the work: progress, time, budgets, utilization — and export the answer.

0 — No reporting beyond looking at the board.

3 — Fixed per-project status views only; nothing aggregates across projects and nothing exports cleanly.

5 — Useful standard reports (progress, tracked time) with basic filters and CSV export, but limited customization and no budget/utilization depth.

8 — Configurable cross-project reporting incl. time, budgets and utilization, with dashboards and reliable exports.

10 — Reporting is a product in itself: custom report builder, scheduled delivery, API access to every metric the UI shows.

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The Data Protection Officer

The registry contains no reporting capability at all: no dashboards, no cross-project aggregation, no exports, no time/budget/utilization anywhere in the captured pages — the closest artifacts are 3-month audit logs and raw API/webhook access. Missing evidence is information; I score by what absence says. 2 4

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Integrations

How this is scored

How well the tool connects to the rest of the stack: native integrations, calendar/comms hooks, API and webhooks, import/export paths.

0 — A closed box — no API, no integrations, CSV out if anything.

3 — A handful of marquee integrations, no public API or an API that covers a fraction of the product.

5 — The common set (calendar, Slack/Teams, file storage) plus a documented public API; automation platforms partially covered.

8 — Broad native catalogue, well-documented API and webhooks, first-class automation-platform support and real import paths from competitors.

10 — Ecosystem-grade: everything in 8 plus the tool is itself extensible (apps/plugins, AI/MCP surfaces) and exit via API export is complete.

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The Data Protection Officer

API and webhook access, a Slack integration that creates and assigns issues, a Salesforce add-on, and MCP surfaces give real connectivity and extensibility. No calendar, file-storage, or automation-platform coverage is evidenced, and there is no evidence of competitor import paths or publicly documented API docs, so it cannot reach 8. 2 4 1

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Onboarding effort

How this is scored

Time and friction from signup to first real value for a small team, without paid services.

0 — No self-serve path — onboarding starts with a sales call and an implementation project.

3 — Self-serve exists but the first project requires configuration a newcomer cannot judge yet (workflows, custom fields, permissions) before anything works.

5 — A team gets a first project running within a day; trial requires payment details or key steps live behind docs.

8 — Signup to working project inside an hour: guided setup, sensible defaults, templates, trial without payment details.

10 — Minutes to value even for non-tool-people, importers pull existing work in, and the tool teaches its own advanced features as the team grows into them.

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The Data Protection Officer

The Free $0 tier with unlimited members and a self-serve 'Get started' path means no payment details and no sales call before value. But nothing evidences guided setup, templates, or importers pulling existing work in, and the 2-team/250-issue caps bind quickly. 2

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the company and the data actually sit: legal entity, ownership control, data residency, and subprocessor exposure to non-EU jurisdictions.

0 — Non-European vendor, data on US infrastructure under US law, no DPA worth the name.

3 — DPA and GDPR language present, but hosting defaults to the US or ownership sits outside Europe — compliance paperwork over substance.

5 — EU data residency is available and contractually fixed, but the vendor or its controlling owner is non-European, or core subprocessors put data within CLOUD Act reach.

8 — European company under European control with EU-resident data and a public DPA; remaining exposure is limited to identifiable subprocessors (e.g. a US hyperscaler's EU region) and is documented.

10 — European company, European control, EU-only data residency on European infrastructure, subprocessor list free of extraterritorial reach — verifiable, not asserted.

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The Data Protection Officer

The privacy policy states the services are 'hosted and operated in the United States through Linear and its service providers,' under a US-incorporated entity at a San Francisco address, with SCCs as the transfer mechanism — compliance paperwork over substance. EU storage is only an optional choice at workspace creation, not a contractual default, and no subprocessor list exists to assess extraterritorial exposure, which I treat as a negative, not a neutral. 3 4

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Support & documentation

How this is scored

Whether a stuck user gets unstuck: docs quality, support channels and their availability per plan, and the health of the learning surface.

0 — No docs beyond marketing pages; support is a contact form that may answer.

3 — Docs exist but are thin or stale; support on entry plans is effectively email-only with slow turnaround.

5 — Searchable help center covering the core product; chat or email support on all plans with reasonable response times.

8 — Deep, current docs incl. onboarding guides and templates; fast chat support not gated to top tiers; visible changelog.

10 — Docs, academy, community and support so good they are a reason to buy; SLAs published, support quality independent of plan.

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The Data Protection Officer

The only evidenced support channel is hello@linear.app from the privacy policy, and priority support is gated to the Enterprise tier. No help center, product documentation, changelog, or learning surface appears anywhere in the registry — below rubric level 3, since I cannot confirm docs exist at all. 2 3

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Can a buyer determine the real, payable cost of the tool for their team before talking to anyone?

0 — No public pricing at all — every number sits behind "contact sales".

3 — Some tiers are public, but a deciding factor (seat minimums, mandatory add-ons, billing-period surcharge, tax treatment) only surfaces at checkout or in fine print.

5 — Self-serve tiers are publicly priced and the billing-period difference is stated, but the headline number still needs qualifying — e.g. annual-only headline, taxes excluded without saying so, or an opaque enterprise tier doing real work.

8 — Every self-serve tier is fully priced with billing periods and tax treatment plain on the page; only genuinely custom enterprise work lacks a number.

10 — Every tier including enterprise has a public price or published price formula, and the headline number is the number on the invoice.

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The Data Protection Officer

A pricing page exists and the Free tier is fully specified with its limits, but only two tiers carry numbers — the middle tiers' prices and monthly/annual split are not captured, Enterprise is custom annual-only with 'contact sales,' and items like the Salesforce add-on have no public price. SAML/SCIM living only in the opaque Enterprise tier means a deciding factor has no number. 2 1

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency EU optional ⚠ unverified 1/3 pts 4 Report an error
Subprocessors US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 3 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (15)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage linear.app Checked 15 Sep 2026 +3 earlier captures: 15 Sep 2026, 11 Sep 2026, 20 Aug 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Vendor pricing page linear.app Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy linear.app Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Security page linear.app Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Data processing agreement (dpa) linear.app Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Collaboration depth — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Collaboration depth — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Reporting — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Reporting — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Integrations — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Integrations — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Onboarding effort — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Onboarding effort — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Support & documentation — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  15. 15 Support & documentation — found from sitemap linear.app Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →