Chassis vs Linear: the cockpit-native PM vs the keyboard-first standalone.
Linear is the best pure-PM tool in the category if you want speed and a deep graph. Chassis is the right pick if you want project management wired into the rest of your operating cockpit — Centerline cadence, Crew people, Atlas docs, Forge AI in the box. Both ship a real GitHub sync. Below: where each one wins, and a feature-by-feature table that doesn't lie.
Where Linear is better.
Honest list. We use Linear, we like Linear, we are not pretending these don't exist.
- Keyboard-first speed. Linear's UX is built around keyboard nav. Five years of polish — slash menus, shortcut chains, command palette. Chassis has the basics (/ to focus, J/K to move, drag-drop) but it is not Linear-tier.
- The graph between issues. Linear's parent/sub/blocks/related model is the most mature in the space, and the visual graph view is genuinely useful for big projects. Chassis has linked tasks (blocks / blocked-by / relates-to) but no first-class graph visualization.
- Polished public roadmap + changelog. Linear ships a hosted public roadmap and changelog as first-class features. Chassis can render this through Webster but it is more manual.
- Mobile native apps. Linear has iOS and Android. Chassis is mobile-responsive web only.
- Five years of triage muscle memory. If your team has 100 saved views, custom workflows, and a year of issue templates in Linear, do not migrate just because Chassis is cheaper. The migration cost is real.
Where Chassis is better.
Where the cockpit-native posture changes what's possible.
- Native to Centerline cadence. Quarterly bearings (what EOS calls rocks) promote into Chassis projects without re-keying. Linear projects don't model an operating cadence.
- Owners are real people, not just emails. Task owners are Crew records — the same person record HR, payroll, performance, and onboarding all reference. One canonical employee across the cockpit.
- Forge AI workflows in the box. Subtask suggestions, auto-written end-of-sprint retros, weekly digests, project scaffolding from your venture profile. No add-ons, no per-seat AI tier.
- Free cockpit + per-Drive pricing. Merkava's cockpit is free. You only pay for the Drives you use. $49/mo flat for Chassis, or bundled into the OPS or TECH exec which includes 4–8 other Drives.
- Operations + engineering in one workspace. Linear is engineering-shaped. If you also run partnership rollouts, hiring drives, pricing changes, infra migrations — those are second-class in Linear and first-class in Chassis. Both views, same Drive, one project field flips between them.
Feature-by-feature.
Snapshot as of May 2026. Tickets sometimes get retired in Linear faster than this page updates; if a row reads wrong, email [email protected] and we'll fix.
| Feature | Chassis | Linear |
|---|---|---|
| Kanban + list view | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cycles / sprints + burndown | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom fields | partial — tags + priority + estimate | ✓ deeper |
| Integrations count | via Merkava integrations (~17) | ✓ deeper ecosystem |
| AI assist (subtasks, retros, digests) | ✓ in the box | partial — newer + more limited |
| GitHub bidirectional sync | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public roadmap + changelog | via Webster (manual) | ✓ first-class |
| Mobile native app | ✗ (responsive web) | ✓ iOS + Android |
| Free tier | 7-day trial; cockpit free | ✓ free up to 250 issues |
| Pricing model | $49/mo flat (per tenant) | $8/seat/mo |
| Operations projects (no repo) | ✓ first-class | partial — works, but eng-shaped |
| Centerline bearing integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| People records (HR + payroll) | ✓ Crew | ✗ |
| Learning curve | low | low–medium |
Who should use Chassis instead.
Solo operators and small teams running multiple motions at once: ops, engineering, content, sales, partnerships. You want one cockpit, not five tools. The Forge AI workflows save you the time you would otherwise spend writing retros and breaking tasks down. Owners are people you also pay (Crew). Quarterly cadence is already in Centerline.
If your work is "the engineering team plus everything else the founder runs," Chassis fits the shape better than Linear does.
Who should stay on Linear.
Don't be a hack. If you are a 50–500-person engineering org with five years of Linear muscle memory, hundreds of saved views, custom triage workflows, and a public roadmap your customers already bookmark — do not migrate. The cost outweighs the benefit. Chassis is the wedge for teams that don't have that investment yet.
If keyboard-first speed is the single most important thing about your PM tool, also stay. Linear's UX is the best in the category and we are not catching up this year.
Try Chassis with the rest of the cockpit.
7-day free trial. No Linear migration required up front — link a GitHub repo and pull your work over.