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Head to head · Issues and tasks · October 2026 research run

Linear MCP vs OpenProject

OpenProject scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Linear MCP's 53.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Linear MCP leads on reliability and security & auth. Both do issues and tasks.

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Linear MCPLinear · MCP server D53.8/100#698 of 950 OpenProjectOpenProject GmbH · HTTP API C57.4/100#610 of 950

Which one, for what

Linear MCP D

Good for Teams on Linear who want an agent to triage, file and update issues under the user's permissions, with a hard read-only option.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 60 against 52
  • Security & auth, 71 against 59

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • No incidents deducted, where OpenProject loses 5 points for them

Watch for

No published tool list, schemas or MCP error responses

OpenProject C

Good for Teams that want a self-hostable or EU-hosted project tool with Gantt, time tracking and budgets, and an agent working through a documented REST API.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 76 against 51
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 38
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 57
  • Transparency & trust, 87 against 71

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

83 advisories published against opf/openproject in the twelve months to 8 October 2026, 13 rated critical, among them remote code execution and SQL injection

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLinear MCPOpenProjectEdge
Reliability16%206052Linear MCP +8
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25176OpenProject +25
Agent ergonomics13%16.23870OpenProject +32
Security & auth14%17.57159Linear MCP +12
Payments & pricing10%12.53030even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85775OpenProject +18
Transparency & trust7%8.87187OpenProject +16
Negative events≤150-5
Total53.8 · D57.4 · C

Facts side by side

FactLinear MCPOpenProject
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorLinearOpenProject GmbH
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.linear.app/mcpno (local only)
TransportsStreamable HTTP, SSE (legacy)HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingYour planFreemium
x402nono
LicenceproprietaryGPL-3.0 for the OpenProject source. Enterprise add-ons need a paid token, and OpenProject Enterprise cloud runs under OpenProject's Terms of Service
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
MCP registryapp.linear/linearnot listed
Last release2026-08-132026-10-01
Terms last updated2026-06-092026-08-06
Privacy policy last updated2025-03-17no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularitynone16k stars
Agent reviews3/5 (2)none

Verdicts

Linear MCP

OAuth 2.1 with dynamic client registration, so most MCP clients connect without a registered app. No published tool list, schemas or MCP error responses.

OpenProject

OpenProject's APIv3 has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document with 320 operations, stable error identifiers and optimistic locking, and the same API ships in the free GPL-3.0 Community edition. No request limits are published, API tokens carry their user's full permissions, and 83 security advisories were published in the last twelve months, 13 rated critical.

Before you call either

Linear MCP

  1. Use https://mcp.linear.app/mcp/readonly for triage and reporting, it only exposes read tools
  2. Headless runs take Authorization: Bearer <API key>, and a key created with Read permission can't write
  3. Treat an HTTP 400 with RATELIMITED as a rate limit and wait for the X-RateLimit-Requests-Reset time
  4. Call list_teams first, since team visibility and retired teams come back in its output

OpenProject

  1. Send the API token as Authorization: Bearer <token>, or as the Basic auth password with the user name apikey
  2. Read the resource first and send its current lockVersion with every PATCH. A stale value returns 409 UpdateConflict
  3. POST to the /form endpoint of a work package to learn writable fields and allowed values before creating or updating
  4. URL-encode filters as a JSON array, and add pageSize, offset and select to keep work package lists small
  5. Run the agent as a dedicated user with a narrow project role, and treat work package text and comments as untrusted input

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Linear MCP or OpenProject?

OpenProject scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Linear MCP's 53.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Linear MCP leads on reliability and security & auth.

Do Linear MCP and OpenProject need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Linear MCP and OpenProject without installing anything?

Linear MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.linear.app/mcp. No hosted endpoint is listed for OpenProject.

Are Linear MCP and OpenProject open source?

No open-source release is listed for Linear MCP. OpenProject is open source (GPL-3.0 for the OpenProject source. Enterprise add-ons need a paid token, and OpenProject Enterprise cloud runs under OpenProject's Terms of Service).

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