All comparisons

Roundup

The best Pivotal Tracker alternatives for 2026

Nine tools worth evaluating now that Pivotal Tracker has shut down, ours included, ranked on how close each is to Tracker's model and how much of a saved export it can take.

How we picked

Pivotal Tracker shut down on April 30, 2025. VMware's Tanzu division, part of Broadcom, announced the end of life in September 2024, ended renewals and new sign-ups, and offered no migration help after the shutdown; pivotaltracker.com no longer resolves. Teams still looking for a home usually miss three things: stories estimated in points, iterations the tool filled for them from the team's velocity, and a tracker simple enough to need no administrator.

We ranked the nine tools below on four things a team leaving Tracker needs: how close the working model is to Tracker's (points, iterations and velocity-based planning), a way in for the export you saved, the price for a small team, and where it can run. Because the service is gone, an export taken before the shutdown is the only copy of your history, so a tool that reads it ranks above an otherwise similar one that does not. A full project export was a ZIP with every story, epic and file attachment and six months of history; exports of selected stories left history and attachments out.

No tool reproduces Tracker exactly. Shortcut comes closest in model and has the richest importer. Linear and Jira use velocity in their own ways but take only part of a Tracker export. Plane, Taiga and OpenProject are open source for teams that want to self-host; GitHub Projects comes with every GitHub plan, and YouTrack is free for up to 10 users.

Shortcut, Linear, Jira, Taiga and GitHub Projects link to a full comparison with Stride; the other picks carry their write-ups here. Stride, our own product, is on the list too, and these criteria rank it fourth; its entry says why. Every price was checked on the vendor's own site in November 2026.

Where Stride fits

Stride is our product, ranked fourth below and labelled as ours. It suits a former Tracker team that wants the same story-pointed rhythm and is ready for more than a tracker: in Stride, stories sit beside their acceptance criteria, tests, defects and architecture decisions, so planning and quality live in one place. If you only need a tracker, Shortcut or Linear is the simpler move.

For how Stride suggests sprint capacity from your team's recent velocity, see AI sprint planning in Stride.

When to choose Stride

  • You want story points, suggested sprint capacity and custom stages for Tracker's states, with your saved export mapped in through a CSV wizard.
  • You are adding test management or architecture decisions alongside the tracker.
  • You want coding agents to read the full story over MCP.

When Stride isn't the fit

  • You need a free plan for the whole team.
  • You want a free tracker you can host yourself.
  • You want Tracker's icebox, backlog and current panels; Stride uses a conventional backlog and sprint layout.

How Stride differs

CompetitorHow Stride differs
ShortcutShortcut is the closer match to Tracker and has a dedicated importer. Stride adds tests, defects and decision records around the same stories.
LinearLinear estimates each cycle's capacity from recent velocity and imports part of a Tracker export. Stride's CSV wizard maps its estimates, iterations, labels and states.

At a glance

Disclosure: Stride is our product. We rank it by the same criteria as every other tool on this list, and its entry says where it falls short.

The best Pivotal Tracker alternatives for 2026: ranked picks with the best fit for each tool
RankToolBest for
1ShortcutThe closest model to Tracker's, with stories, epics, iterations and, from its Team plan, a velocity chart, plus the richest importer for a saved Tracker export.
2LinearCycles that largely run themselves: upcoming cycles are created automatically, open issues roll over, and capacity comes from the last three cycles' velocity.
3JiraThe most configurable option, and on Premium close to Tracker's automatic planning: its auto-scheduler lays out work from estimates, capacity and velocity.
4Stride(our product)Tracker's cadence plus the rest of delivery: story points, capacity suggested from recent sprints, custom stages for Tracker's states, and a CSV wizard for your saved export.
5PlaneOpen source, with cycles, estimates and, on Plane Cloud or the self-hosted Commercial Edition, a CSV import that keeps estimates, comments and cycles.
6TaigaOpen source, with velocity forecasting: Taiga creates sprints according to team velocity, at a flat price for unlimited users.
7YouTrackThe low-cost option, free for up to 10 users in the cloud or on your own server, with sprints, backlogs and burndown charts.
8OpenProjectOpen source, with backlogs, story points, sprint boards and burndown charts, for organisations that want the tracker on their own servers.
9GitHub ProjectsFree and beside the code: iteration fields, board and table views and a burn-up chart on GitHub issues, for teams whose work already lives in GitHub.

Quick answers

What is the best replacement for Pivotal Tracker?

Shortcut, for the closest model and an importer that reads a saved Tracker export. Linear estimates each cycle's capacity from recent velocity but imports only part of that export, and the auto-scheduler in Jira Premium comes close to Tracker's automatic planning. Stride, our own product, ranks fourth: story points, suggested sprint capacity and a CSV import wizard, with tests and decisions beside the stories. Plane, Taiga and OpenProject suit teams that self-host.

Can I still export my data from Pivotal Tracker?

No. Exports ended with the service on April 30, 2025, and pivotaltracker.com no longer resolves, so the only data left is an export someone saved before then. A full project export was a ZIP with every story, epic and file attachment and six months of history. Tools that read such a file include Shortcut's open-source importer and the CSV wizard in Stride, our own product.

The ranking

  1. 1

    Shortcut

    The closest model to Tracker's, with stories, epics, iterations and, from its Team plan, a velocity chart, plus the richest importer for a saved Tracker export.

    Shortcut's stories, epics, iterations and velocity chart map closely onto Tracker's, and its open-source importer, marked alpha, reads the CSV from Tracker's unzipped export, plus its attachment folders: titles, descriptions, types, states, estimates, iterations, labels, requesters, owners, comments, tasks, epics and file attachments come across, with reviewers added as followers. Project history does not, blockers need a separate script, and the README warns against running it on a workspace that already holds data. The velocity chart and the automations that create future iterations and move unfinished stories on need the Team plan. Best fit: Tracker teams who want the same rhythm with the least relearning. The trade-off: there is no self-hosted version.

    Free for up to 10 users · Team $8.50 and Business $12 per user a month billed yearly, $10 and $16 monthly · Enterprise on quote

    Stride vs Shortcut

  2. 2

    Linear

    Cycles that largely run themselves: upcoming cycles are created automatically, open issues roll over, and capacity comes from the last three cycles' velocity.

    Linear's cycles are the nearest thing to Tracker's iterations in a modern tracker: it can create upcoming cycles automatically, rolls unfinished issues into the next one, and estimates capacity from the velocity of the previous three completed cycles, shown as a dial; estimates are an optional points property. The Linear Agent and MCP access come with every plan. Best fit: product teams that liked Tracker's pace and want a faster, keyboard-driven tool. The trade-off is the import: Linear's in-app importers do not cover Tracker, and its command-line importer reads a Tracker CSV for chores, features and bugs, keeping the title, description, labels, owner, estimate and creation date, linking back to the Tracker story and marking accepted stories Done and the rest Todo; iterations, epics, comments and Tracker's own states stay behind.

    Free for unlimited members, 2 teams and 250 issues · Basic $10 and Business $16 per user a month, billed yearly · Enterprise on quote

    Stride vs Linear

  3. 3

    Jira

    The most configurable option, and on Premium close to Tracker's automatic planning: its auto-scheduler lays out work from estimates, capacity and velocity.

    Jira's Scrum boards carry a velocity chart, and on Premium and Enterprise its Plans auto-scheduler lays work out from estimates, a team's capacity and its velocity, close to Tracker's automatic iteration planning. Atlassian withdrew its built-in Tracker importer with Jira 8.4 and points Cloud customers to its CSV import, which maps a file's columns to Jira fields. Rovo AI comes with every paid plan. Best fit: teams joining an organisation that already runs on Jira. The trade-offs: it is far heavier to configure than Tracker ever was, and Data Center is closed to new customers, so a new team gets Jira Cloud.

    Free for up to 10 users · Standard $9.70 and Premium $19.60 per user a month at 10 users, billed monthly · Enterprise from 801 users

    Stride vs Jira

  4. 4

    Stride

    Our product

    Tracker's cadence plus the rest of delivery: story points, capacity suggested from recent sprints, custom stages for Tracker's states, and a CSV wizard for your saved export.

    Stride keeps the parts of Tracker's model teams miss: story points, a suggested capacity for each sprint from the last three completed sprints that delivered points, and custom workflow stages, so Finished, Delivered and Accepted can sit beside its default To do, In progress, In review and Done. Its CSV import wizard maps a Tracker export's estimates, iterations, labels and states, with a value-mapping step for the states; Tracker files are not detected automatically, so expect some manual mapping per project. It ranks fourth because it has no free plan and a shorter track record than the three above it. The trade-off in its favour: the stories sit beside their tests, defects and decision records in one platform, priced from $12 a seat a month, billed yearly.

    Our product · Starter $15, Pro $39, Enterprise from $69 per seat a month · No free plan · 14-day free trial

    Stride vs Pivotal Tracker

  5. 5

    Plane

    Open source, with cycles, estimates and, on Plane Cloud or the self-hosted Commercial Edition, a CSV import that keeps estimates, comments and cycles.

    Plane organises work in cycles with estimates (basic on Free, advanced on Pro), and its Business plan adds recurring cycles that schedule themselves and roll unfinished work over. Its CSV importer reads name, description, state, priority, labels, assignees, comments, estimates and dates from columns named as Plane expects, and places work in cycles that already exist; importers run on Plane Cloud and the self-hosted Commercial Edition, and the free Community Edition is open source under AGPL v3. AI comes with Pro and Business on Plane Cloud only. Best fit: teams that want to self-host. The trade-offs: no velocity or capacity planning, and epics do not import.

    Free for up to 12 users · Pro $6 and Business $13 per user a month billed yearly, $8 and $15 monthly · open-source Community Edition

  6. 6

    Taiga

    Open source, with velocity forecasting: Taiga creates sprints according to team velocity, at a flat price for unlimited users.

    Taiga has forecast velocity since 2017, building sprints according to the team's measured pace, and its cloud plans charge a flat monthly price for unlimited users, from €5 a month; the backend is MPL-2.0 and the frontend AGPL-3.0 if you would rather run it yourself. Its Tracker importer, a command-line tool, read from Tracker's live API, so it can no longer work, and the importers in its web interface cover tools such as Trello, GitHub, Jira and Asana, not Tracker. Best fit: open-source teams that miss Tracker's velocity forecasting. The trade-off: a saved Tracker export has no direct way in, so plan for a scripted import.

    Open source to self-host (MPL-2.0 and AGPL-3.0) · Cloud free for 1 public and 1 private project · paid cloud plans from €5 a month, unlimited users

    Stride vs Taiga

  7. 7

    YouTrack

    The low-cost option, free for up to 10 users in the cloud or on your own server, with sprints, backlogs and burndown charts.

    YouTrack, from JetBrains, is free for up to 10 users whether you use its cloud or run YouTrack Server, and cloud seats above that cost US $4.50 a month or less, billed annually, falling to $1.53 for large teams. It supports Scrum with sprints, a backlog built as a saved search, estimation fields and burndown charts, and can move unresolved issues into the next sprint automatically. It offers a remote MCP server and an AI Assistant, whose free credits are due to move to paid cloud plans only in the fourth quarter of 2026. Best fit: cost-conscious teams, especially those already in JetBrains IDEs. The trade-offs: story-point velocity and capacity planning remain an open feature request, and there is no Tracker importer, so a saved export needs a custom import script.

    From JetBrains · free for up to 10 users, in the cloud or self-hosted · cloud from US $4.50 per user a month billed annually, less for larger teams

  8. 8

    OpenProject

    Open source, with backlogs, story points, sprint boards and burndown charts, for organisations that want the tracker on their own servers.

    OpenProject's Community edition is free to self-host under GPL-3.0, and its backlogs module covers story points, sprint boards and burndown charts; since version 17.3, sprints are objects of their own rather than versions. Paid plans start at €5.95 per user a month for Basic, with a 25-user minimum, and an MCP server is an Enterprise add-on from Professional upwards. Best fit: organisations that must keep the tracker on their own servers. The trade-offs: no velocity-based planning, no Tracker importer, and a minimum seat count that is large for a small team.

    Free Community edition to self-host, GPL-3.0 · Cloud and Enterprise plans from €5.95 per user a month, 25-user minimum

  9. 9

    GitHub Projects

    Free and beside the code: iteration fields, board and table views and a burn-up chart on GitHub issues, for teams whose work already lives in GitHub.

    GitHub Projects comes with every GitHub plan, Free included, and turns issues and pull requests into tables, boards and roadmaps. Iteration fields take any length, with breaks, grouped views sum number fields such as estimates, and a default burn-up chart tracks progress; items move between iterations by hand. A project can pull in items from a repository or a search query, but nothing reads a Tracker export. Best fit: small teams that already work in GitHub and want the plan next to the code. The trade-off: velocity, capacity and story points are not built-in concepts, so Tracker's planning model has to be rebuilt by convention.

    Included in every GitHub plan, Free included · Team $4 and Enterprise $21 per user a month

    Stride vs GitHub Projects

Honourable mentions

  • TrelloAtlassian's board tool, free for 10 collaborators per Workspace, but its plans list no story points, sprints or velocity, and Trello cannot rebuild a board from a CSV or JSON file.
  • AsanaStory points through custom fields and sprints through a template, with a CSV importer for tasks, but no velocity; its free Personal plan is for two people.
  • KanboardFree, MIT-licensed, self-hosted Kanban with work-in-progress limits and estimates, now in maintenance mode, with no sprints or velocity.

FAQ

What happened to Pivotal Tracker?
VMware's Tanzu division, part of Broadcom since it completed its purchase of VMware in November 2023, announced on September 18, 2024 that Pivotal Tracker would reach end of life on April 30, 2025, for every account type: free, sponsored, paid and Enterprise. It stopped renewals and sign-ups without an invitation, and offered no help migrating data after that date. The domain no longer resolves.
Which tools can import a Pivotal Tracker export?
Shortcut's open-source importer, still marked alpha, reads the CSV from Tracker's unzipped export, with its attachment folders, and carries the most: estimates, iterations, epics, owners, comments, tasks and attachments. Linear's command-line importer takes a Tracker CSV and keeps titles, descriptions, labels, owners, estimates and creation dates, with a link back to each story. Jira's CSV import and the import wizard in Stride, our own product, map a Tracker CSV's columns, and Plane's CSV importer needs them renamed to its own headers first. Taiga's importer needed Tracker's live API, so it no longer works.
Does Linear have velocity like Pivotal Tracker?
In effect, yes. Linear calculates a cycle's capacity from the velocity of the previous three completed cycles and shows it as a dial, it can create upcoming cycles automatically, and open issues roll over. Estimates are optional points. What it does not do is fill the coming cycles for you from that velocity, as Tracker did with its iterations.
What is the best free alternative to Pivotal Tracker?
For a small team: Shortcut is free for up to 10 users, though its velocity chart needs the Team plan; YouTrack is free for up to 10 in the cloud or on your own server, Plane for up to 12 and Jira for up to 10. Linear's free plan allows unlimited members but only 250 issues. To self-host at no cost, Plane's Community Edition, Taiga and OpenProject's Community edition are open source.

Related rankings

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  • The best Jira alternatives for 2026

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