Linear MCP Server vs MCP Time Server

A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.

	Linear MCP Server MCP Servers	MCP Time Server MCP Servers
Tagline	Open-source MCP server bridging LLM agents to Linear's issue tracker (now deprecated in favour of Linear's official remote MCP)	Official MCP reference server for current time and IANA timezone conversion.
Category	MCP Servers	MCP Servers
Pricing	Free· Free and open source (MIT). Requires a Linear account and personal API key; Linear itself is free for small teams, $8/user/mo Standard, $14/user/mo Plus.	Free· Free and open source (MIT-licensed reference server maintained by the Model Context Protocol project).
Model	—	—
Editorial score	—	—
Use cases	Filing bugs from Claude Desktop or Cursor without leaving the editorAgent-driven triage of the inbox projectBulk relabeling or reprioritising issues via natural languageStandup summaries of a user's assigned Linear workAdding comments to tickets from a coding agent's PR reviewReference implementation for building a custom Linear MCP server	Grounding current-time answers in a chat assistantTimezone conversion for distributed team schedulingMeeting-time suggestions across regionsLog-timestamp interpretation during incident triageTravel-planning assistantsCron and scheduled-job explanationDST-aware reminders in agent workflowsCorrecting model timestamps in RAG citations
Pros	Open source (MIT) and small enough to read end-to-end in an afternoon One-line install via Smithery or straight npx in Claude Desktop config Covers the create / update / search / comment loop that 90% of ticket workflows need Works with any MCP client, not just Claude Desktop (Cursor, Zed, Continue, custom agents) Clear tool schemas make it a good reference implementation for building your own MCP servers Uses Linear's official GraphQL API, so permissions and audit trails stay intact	Fixes a real, common LLM failure mode: guessing the current time or botching a timezone conversion Zero-config for most users -- uvx mcp-server-time works instantly on any MCP client Ships as an official reference server, so it stays in step with MCP protocol changes Three install paths (uv, pip, Docker) cover local dev, servers, and sandboxed agents Uses IANA timezone names and reports DST status, so results are unambiguous Tiny surface area (two tools) makes it safe to grant blanket permission to
Cons	Officially deprecated by its author in favour of Linear's own remote MCP server at mcp.linear.app/sse Runs as a local stdio process, so it has to be installed on every workstation and cannot be shared across a team Uses a personal API key, meaning every action shows up as the key owner rather than the actual LLM user Tool coverage is narrower than the official server: no cycles, projects, roadmaps, or workflow state management Error handling and rate-limit backoff are minimal; heavy agent loops can trip Linear's API limits	Only two tools -- no date arithmetic, no natural-language parsing, no recurring-event math Relies on the host's tzdata; stale OS images can return incorrect DST results No network time source -- accuracy is only as good as the machine's own clock Documentation is a README; no hosted docs site, changelog, or version-support policy Python-only implementation means an extra runtime if your stack is otherwise Node or Go
Website	github.com	github.com

Pick Linear MCP Server if

✅ Open source (MIT) and small enough to read end-to-end in an afternoon
✅ One-line install via Smithery or straight npx in Claude Desktop config
✅ Covers the create / update / search / comment loop that 90% of ticket workflows need
✅ Works with any MCP client, not just Claude Desktop (Cursor, Zed, Continue, custom agents)

Pick MCP Time Server if

✅ Fixes a real, common LLM failure mode: guessing the current time or botching a timezone conversion
✅ Zero-config for most users -- uvx mcp-server-time works instantly on any MCP client
✅ Ships as an official reference server, so it stays in step with MCP protocol changes
✅ Three install paths (uv, pip, Docker) cover local dev, servers, and sandboxed agents

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