Linear ships issues.
Lane ships design.
Linear is the best issue tracker ever built. It’s still an issue tracker. Design work isn’t issues — it’s a loop that starts before the ticket and ends after it closes.
Pick Linear if your team is engineering-led, your design work is downstream of specs, and cycle velocity is a metric you actually trust.
Pick Lane if your designers own the problem upstream, not just the execution, and velocity charts have stopped telling you anything true.
We're not pretending Linear is bad.
We like Linear. It’s the cleanest issue tracker we’ve ever used, and for frontend-heavy engineering teams shipping a clear backlog, it’s probably the right tool. The keyboard-first interaction model alone sets a bar most SaaS won’t clear.
If your company is engineering-led — product reports to engineering, design sits downstream of specs, and the main question is "how fast are we shipping the work we already decided to do?" — Linear’s cycle model is purpose-built for that shape.
If your design team is two people embedded inside an engineering org and the real workflow happens in code review, Linear’s lightweight scope is a feature, not a gap. Adding Lane on top would be overhead.
The line we draw, drawn honestly.
The line we draw is this: issue trackers assume the problem is already defined and the only question is execution velocity. That’s not what design is. The hardest part of a designer’s week is often the fifteen minutes spent reframing a PM request before it becomes work at all.
Linear has no concept of that. A Linear issue starts the clock — Lane’s intake gate stops it. "Make the button bigger" doesn’t become a ticket in Lane; it becomes a conversation that ends in a real problem statement or gets sent back.
And once the work ships, Linear closes the issue. Lane keeps the Stream open until an outcome is measured. That one difference is the whole point.
Twelve capabilities, three honest states.
No green checkmark soup. Each cell is annotated, including the rows where Lane is intentionally absent — design throughput isn't velocity, and we won't pretend it is.
| Capability | Linear | Lane |
|---|---|---|
| Issue tracking speed & polish | Full Best-in-class keyboard model, sub-100ms everything. | None Different tool, different shape. Streams aren’t issues. |
| AI intake gate for PM requests | None Every filed issue becomes an issue. No upstream filter. | Full Classifies problem-framed vs solution-specific before work starts. |
| Non-linear design stages | None Cycles are linear by design — that’s the product. | Full Five scientific stages. Loops back without penalty. |
| Figma-native handoff | Partial Figma plugin exists. Not a first-class surface. | Full Figma OAuth is a core integration, not an afterthought. |
| Outcome measurement after ship | None Issue closes, cycle ends. Nothing tracks what changed. | Full Every Stream ends at a measured outcome, not a status. |
| Velocity charts & burndown | Full Cycle velocity, throughput, estimates. | None Intentionally absent. Design throughput isn’t velocity. |
| Individual activity tracking | Partial Per-assignee views and triage queues. | None Intentionally absent. No per-designer dashboards, ever. |
| Engineering-facing handoff | Full GitHub/GitLab integration, branch linking, PR sync. | Partial Ship stage links to PRs. Engineering velocity is not our job. |
| PM weekly digest (read-only) | Partial Inbox filtering, not a curated summary. | Full AI-written digest: shipped, blocked, escalations. |
| Roadmap & portfolio views | Full Initiatives, projects, roadmap timeline. | Partial Stream-level view. No quarter-planning gantt chart. |
| Data export on cancel | Full API + export, clean data model. | Full Full JSON + CSV. Thirty-day grace period. |
| SSO / SCIM | Full Full enterprise identity story. | Partial SSO at launch. SCIM on the roadmap. |
Best-in-class keyboard model, sub-100ms everything.
Different tool, different shape. Streams aren’t issues.
Every filed issue becomes an issue. No upstream filter.
Classifies problem-framed vs solution-specific before work starts.
Cycles are linear by design — that’s the product.
Five scientific stages. Loops back without penalty.
Figma plugin exists. Not a first-class surface.
Figma OAuth is a core integration, not an afterthought.
Issue closes, cycle ends. Nothing tracks what changed.
Every Stream ends at a measured outcome, not a status.
Cycle velocity, throughput, estimates.
Intentionally absent. Design throughput isn’t velocity.
Per-assignee views and triage queues.
Intentionally absent. No per-designer dashboards, ever.
GitHub/GitLab integration, branch linking, PR sync.
Ship stage links to PRs. Engineering velocity is not our job.
Inbox filtering, not a curated summary.
AI-written digest: shipped, blocked, escalations.
Initiatives, projects, roadmap timeline.
Stream-level view. No quarter-planning gantt chart.
API + export, clean data model.
Full JSON + CSV. Thirty-day grace period.
Full enterprise identity story.
SSO at launch. SCIM on the roadmap.
Lane vs Linear, asked honestly.
Can I migrate from Linear to Lane?
Partially. You can export your Linear issues as CSV and we’ll help you fold the design-tagged ones into Streams during onboarding. But Linear issues and Lane Streams aren’t the same object — a Stream starts before a ticket would exist and ends after it would close. Most teams treat Lane as a new surface rather than a port.
Does Lane replace Linear for engineering teams?
No, and we’re not trying to. Linear is a genuinely great issue tracker and your engineers should keep using it. Lane sits upstream of Linear for design work — intake, framing, divergence — and references Linear tickets at the ship stage. The two tools do different jobs.
Why don’t you just add design workflow features to Linear?
We can’t — we don’t work there. And even if we did, the answer would still be no. Linear’s model is cycles of issues moving forward. Design work loops, stalls, gets reframed, and measures itself against outcomes months after a ticket would close. That’s not a feature you bolt on; it’s a different product.
Is Lane faster than Linear?
No. Linear is the fastest SaaS app we’ve ever used and we’re not going to out-keyboard them. Lane is as fast as it needs to be for thinking work, which is a different bar. If sub-100ms triage is load-bearing for your team, that’s a real reason to stay on Linear.
Do I need to pick one — Linear or Lane?
No. The expected setup is designers live in Lane, engineers live in Linear, and the two connect at the Ship stage. Nobody has to learn both tools end-to-end.
Beta opens Summer 2026. Capped at 100 design teams.
We prioritize design leads at teams of eight or more. Pricing is flat at $29 per designer. If Linearis still the right answer for you after reading this — that's a fine outcome. We'd rather you know than guess.