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Roadmap OS vs airfocus: An Honest Comparison

·8 min read

Quick verdict

airfocus is a strong, mature roadmapping tool with excellent prioritization frameworks and a polished UI. It's a great fit for established mid-market product teams in Europe with ~10 stakeholders and a budget that can absorb per-user pricing. Roadmap OS is an all-in-one PM platform that combines roadmap, capacity, plans, products, prioritization, GTM checklists, and feedback in one workspace. It's a fit for small-to-mid teams who want one tool instead of five, especially teams in emerging markets, or teams shipping hardware. Switch from airfocus to Roadmap OS if:
  • You're paying €49/user/mo and the math doesn't work for your team size
  • You also need capacity planning (airfocus doesn't have this)
  • You ship hardware products
  • You want a desktop app
  • You're paying separately for a feedback tool, capacity tool, or project planner
Stay on airfocus if:
  • Your team is deeply into the airfocus prioritization workflow (it's genuinely strong)
  • You don't need capacity planning
  • Your enterprise procurement requires SOC 2 Type II (Roadmap OS is Type 1; Type 2 in progress)

Feature comparison

FeatureRoadmap OSairfocus
Starting price$0 (free tier)€49/user/mo (no free tier)
Standard tier$17/mo (whole team)€89/user/mo
Roadmap (Gantt + Kanban)✅ Both views, same data✅ Multiple views
Now/Next/Later
Prioritization frameworks✅ 6 (RICE, ICE, MoSCoW, Kano, Cost of Delay, Value-Effort)✅ Excellent — flexible scoring
Capacity planning✅ CapacityIQ — built-in❌ Not available
Project planner (WBS)✅ Plans module — 4 views, dependencies, 200+ templates
Product profiles✅ Full lifecycle, release notes, bug tracker
Hardware specs (BOM, firmware, certifications)
GTM checklists
Feedback portal✅ Public form + voting✅ Strong
Reports & dashboards
Audit log✅ Roadmap Change Log
Desktop app✅ Mac/Windows/Linux
Offline-capable
Integrations5 (Jira, GitHub, Slack, Asana, Linear)10+
AI features✅ Pro tier — BYO API key
Custom workflows⏳ Coming Q3 2026
Public roadmap embed⏳ Coming Q2 2026
API access⏳ Coming Q3 2026
Native ZAR / KES support
Paystack billing
LanguagesEnglish (more coming)English, German
SOC 2Type 1 (Type 2 in progress)Type 2

Pricing breakdown

For a team of 8 (1 PM, 4 engineers, 1 designer, 2 stakeholders):
PlanairfocusRoadmap OS
Cheapest plan that fitsAdvanced — €49/user × 8 = €392/mo (~$420 USD)Standard — $17/mo total team
Annual cost€4,704$204
Savings switching from airfocus to Roadmap OS: ~$4,500/year for an 8-person team.

For a team of 20, that becomes ~$11,000/year saved.

That said: airfocus's "Pro" tier on per-user pricing buys you mature workflows, Salesforce integration, and a more battle-tested platform. The price difference reflects different stages.


Where airfocus wins

Honest list. We don't compete by lying.

1. Prioritization sophistication

airfocus's prioritization is genuinely best-in-class. Custom scoring, weighted criteria, drag-and-drop comparison views. If your team's primary use case is "rigorously score 50+ initiatives across 8 weighted dimensions," airfocus is a better fit than Roadmap OS today.

Roadmap OS has 6 frameworks built in. They cover 90% of cases. They don't yet support fully custom weighted scoring.

2. Salesforce integration

If your sales-driven roadmap workflow depends on Salesforce opportunity data flowing into prioritization, airfocus has this. Roadmap OS doesn't (yet).

3. Maturity

airfocus has been shipping since 2018. They have enterprise references, SOC 2 Type 2, and a polish that comes from 7 years of iteration. Roadmap OS launched 18 months ago. We're shipping fast but we're younger.

4. Workflow customization

airfocus lets you build deeply customized workflows per workspace. Roadmap OS is more opinionated — there's a "right way" to use it. For teams that need extreme customization, airfocus is more flexible.


Where Roadmap OS wins

1. Pricing model

Total-team pricing ($17/mo whole workspace) is fundamentally different from per-user pricing (€49/user/mo). At team sizes >5, the math is dramatic.

For emerging market teams, this isn't a "nice optimization." It's the difference between affording the tool and not.

2. Capacity planning built in

airfocus doesn't do capacity planning. It's a deliberate scope choice on their part — they're a roadmap-first tool, and they expect you to use a separate capacity tool (or a spreadsheet).

Roadmap OS includes CapacityIQ — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly views of team and individual utilization. Right next to the roadmap. This is the feature I cared about most when building Roadmap OS, because missing capacity is what cost me the most deadlines.

If you don't need capacity planning, this isn't a Roadmap OS advantage. If you do, it's a major one.

3. Plans module (project planner)

Roadmap OS has a real WBS-style project planner with task hierarchies, dependencies, four views, and 200+ templates. airfocus doesn't have this — they expect you to use Asana, Jira, or similar for delivery.

For small teams that don't want to maintain both a roadmap tool and a separate project planner, this is a significant scope advantage.

4. Hardware product support

Roadmap OS has product profiles with hardware-specific fields: BOM, firmware version, hardware revision, certifications with expiry dates, units shipped, failure rate, MTBF. airfocus is software-only.

If you ship hardware, this matters.

5. Desktop app

Roadmap OS ships a desktop app for Mac/Windows/Linux from the same codebase as the web app. Offline-capable. airfocus is web-only.

For teams in regions with intermittent connectivity, this is non-trivial.

6. Founder support

I personally onboard most paying customers. Email sabelo@roadmapos.com and I'll reply, usually within 24 hours.


Who should pick which?

Pick airfocus if:

  • You're a mid-market or enterprise team (50+ people)
  • Your primary use case is sophisticated prioritization (heavy custom scoring, weighted criteria)
  • You already have a project planner (Asana, Jira) and a capacity tool (or don't need one)
  • Salesforce integration is mission-critical
  • Per-user pricing fits your budget
  • You need SOC 2 Type 2 today

Pick Roadmap OS if:

  • You're a small-to-mid team (5-50 people)
  • You want one tool instead of five (roadmap + capacity + plans + feedback + GTM)
  • You ship hardware or hardware+software
  • Per-user pricing is a budget problem
  • You're in an emerging market and need ZAR/KES/Paystack
  • You want a desktop app
  • You'd rather email the founder than open a support ticket

How to migrate

If you're switching from airfocus to Roadmap OS:

  1. Export your airfocus data (CSV export from any view).
  2. Sign up for Roadmap OS (free tier, no credit card).
  3. Import via the Roadmap import wizard (we built CSV import specifically for migrations from airfocus and Productboard).
  4. Re-create your prioritization scoring. Most airfocus users find Roadmap OS's RICE or Cost of Delay frameworks cover their needs. If you have heavy custom scoring, email sabelo@roadmapos.com and I'll help map it.
  5. Connect your delivery tool. Jira/GitHub/Linear sync takes ~5 minutes.
  6. Cancel airfocus at the end of your billing cycle.

Most teams complete this migration in under 4 hours.


What we'll fix in the next 6 months

Honest roadmap (eating our own dog food):

  • ✅ Public roadmap embed widget — Q2 2026
  • ✅ Custom workflow builder — Q3 2026
  • ✅ Public REST API — Q3 2026
  • ✅ Salesforce integration — Q4 2026
  • ✅ SOC 2 Type 2 — Q4 2026
  • ✅ Notion / Trello / Monday integrations — rolling Q2-Q3
  • ✅ Native German + Spanish translations — Q4 2026

If you'd switch from airfocus when these ship, join the waitlist and we'll email you when each lands.


Bottom line

airfocus and Roadmap OS overlap, but they're built for different teams.

airfocus optimizes for mid-market depth — sophisticated prioritization, mature workflows, enterprise readiness.

Roadmap OS optimizes for total-stack consolidation — combining roadmap, capacity, plans, products, and feedback in one tool, at a price that works for small teams.

If you're paying for airfocus + a separate project planner + a separate capacity tool + a feedback collection tool, the consolidation math alone justifies the switch.

If airfocus is doing the job and your stack works, don't switch for the sake of it. The right tool is the one your team uses.

Try Roadmap OS free →

Screenshot references

  • assets/screenshots/comparisons/airfocus-vs-roadmapos-roadmap.png — Side-by-side roadmap views.
  • assets/screenshots/comparisons/airfocus-vs-roadmapos-prioritization.png — Side-by-side prioritization views.
  • assets/screenshots/comparisons/pricing-table.png — Cost comparison for 8-person team.
  • assets/screenshots/comparisons/migration-flow.png — Step-by-step migration screenshot from airfocus to Roadmap OS.

Try Roadmap OS

Roadmaps, G2M, KPIs, capacity, AI artifacts — all in one app. From $17/month.