An honest comparison
NEWWORK Projects vs Linear
Linear set the bar for how fast and well-made a tracker can feel, and its agents can be delegated issues like teammates. NEWWORK Projects focuses on what happens around the delegation: the brief the agent receives, the evidence it returns, and what the work costs.
Last reviewed October 2026, from Linear’s own public pages. Sources below.
Where Linear is genuinely good
- ✓Exceptionally fast, keyboard-first and well designed.
- ✓Agents as workspace members you delegate issues to, with agent sessions.
- ✓Cycles, triage and project updates that product engineering teams love.
- ✓A hosted MCP server and a built-in Linear Agent.
Choose Linear if
You are a product engineering team that values speed and craft above all and does not need time tracking, budgets or client work.
Choose NEWWORK Projects if
You want every ticket scored for agent readiness, checks proven with evidence, and agent hours, budgets and change requests in the same place.
Side by side, for agentic work
| NEWWORK Projects | Linear | |
|---|---|---|
| What an agent gets from a ticket | A brief: intent, context, behaviour, constraints and acceptance checks. A readiness score says whether it is ready for an agent, and open questions keep it from being handed over. | The issue as it was written, plus context the agent session collects. Agents can help write requirements. |
| Agent access | MCP by URL and personal token, or the newwork-projects-mcp package. On every plan, including Free. Never counted or metered. | A hosted MCP server, and Linear for Agents: agents installed as workspace members that can be delegated issues. |
| Proof of done | Acceptance checks ticked with evidence (pull request, commit, test run). Done tickets show Verified, or what is missing. | Status workflows and pull request automation. |
| Agent work in time tracking | Live timers for people and agents. Agent timers are marked “via AI agent” and booked like anyone’s. | No built-in time tracking. |
| Client work | Change requests with prices and approval, project budgets in hours or money, cost centers, capacity planning. | Built for product development rather than client delivery. |
| Hosting | Hosted in the EU, with a data processing agreement. | — |
Where we fall short today
- –No marketplace of extensions: GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket for code, Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues, Asana, ClickUp and CSV for import, Slack, Teams, webhooks and a REST API, MCP for agents.
- –Nova and Brainstorm read code from Bitbucket; GitHub and GitLab repositories are for coding agents only.
- –Single sign-on is Google or Microsoft; SCIM is part of Enterprise, and SAML comes with Enterprise agreements.
- –No native mobile apps; the web app installs on phones and computers, with notifications.
- –Agents connect with personal tokens; OAuth sign-in for MCP clients is planned.
Sources · reviewed October 2026
Products change. If something here is out of date, write to hello@newworkprojects.com and we will correct it.
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