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Technology · head to head

Height vs Shortwave

H

Height

Technology

A project management tool from a small independent vendor that uses AI agents to handle routine ticket maintenance.

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Shortwave logo

Shortwave

Email Marketing

AI-powered email assistant for intelligent inbox management

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Height it is one product from one small venture-funded company with no second line of business underwriting it, so adopting it as your system of record is a bet on that company's funding, and the tool holds work history you would have to reconstruct elsewhere if the bet fails.; Shortwave per-seat pricing increases team costs compared to flat-rate email solutions
  • They diverge on capability: Height covers Autonomous triage, Shortwave covers AI Email Filtering.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Height and Shortwave actually diverge.

Attributes where Height and Shortwave differ
AttributeHeightShortwave
PlatformsWebiOS, Android, macOS, Windows
CategoryTechnologyEmail Marketing
Founded2018Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Unknown), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Height

  • Autonomous triage
  • Duplicate detection
  • Attribute maintenance
  • Per-task chat
  • Multiple views
  • Developer integrations
  • Custom fields and filters
  • Public API

Only in Shortwave

  • AI Email Filtering
  • Intelligent Autocomplete
  • Voice-Style Composition
  • Meeting Scheduling
  • Email-to-Todo Conversion
  • AI-Powered Search
  • Team Collaboration
  • Email Summaries

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Height

  • A product or engineering team with no dedicated project manager, where backlog upkeep currently falls on whoever has timenot Shortwave
  • Teams leaving Jira because its configuration and administration cost more attention than the tracking is worthnot Shortwave
  • A support or intake queue where incoming requests need categorising and deduplicating before anyone can plan themnot Shortwave
  • Startups that want tasks, chat and progress tracking in one tool rather than stitching a tracker to a chat appnot Shortwave

Shortwave

  • Reducing inbox overload through AI-powered organizationnot Height
  • Drafting professional emails using natural languagenot Height
  • Scheduling meetings without back-and-forth coordinationnot Height
  • Searching email archives using conversational queriesnot Height
  • Converting emails to tasks for team task trackingnot Height

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Height

  • It is one product from one small venture-funded company with no second line of business underwriting it, so adopting it as your system of record is a bet on that company's funding, and the tool holds work history you would have to reconstruct elsewhere if the bet fails.
  • The 2024 relaunch as Height 2.0 reoriented the product around AI agents and changed workflows customers had already built on, which is the clearest available evidence of how much the product may be re-shaped again under you.
  • The ecosystem is small next to Jira, Linear and Asana: fewer third-party integrations, no consultancy market, and far less written material to search when something behaves unexpectedly, so support questions go to the vendor and wait.
  • The automation only pays off if tasks contain enough substance for a model to work with; on a team whose tickets are two-word titles, the agents have nothing to triage or deduplicate and the product reduces to an ordinary tracker at a premium.
  • Task content is processed by hosted large language models, so a security review becomes a question about subprocessors and data handling, and there is no self-hosted or on-premises deployment to fall back on if the answer is unacceptable.
  • There is no widely used two-way synchronisation with Jira, so an organisation where one team adopts Height and the rest stay on Jira ends up with two systems of record and manual reconciliation between them.

Shortwave

  • Per-seat pricing increases team costs compared to flat-rate email solutions
  • AI features may require higher tier plans, limiting value for smaller teams
  • Dependency on third-party integrations for full feature depth
  • Learning curve for effective use of AI-powered features
  • Limited customization for AI filter behavior compared to manual rules

Pricing, plan by plan

Height

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Height review.

Shortwave

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Email search and organization
    • Basic inbox tools
    • Limited AI features
  • Business$30/month
    • Full standard search history
    • 5 years AI search history
    • Max 50 threads per AI search
  • Premier$45/month
    • Everything in Business
    • 2x more AI usage
    • Unlimited AI search history
  • Max$120/month
    • Everything in Premier
    • 6x more AI usage
    • Max 150 threads per AI search

Which should you pick?

Choose Height if

  • You need autonomous triage.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want duplicate detection.
Height review

Choose Shortwave if

  • You need ai email filtering.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want intelligent autocomplete.
Shortwave review

Questions people ask

Is Height or Shortwave better?
Neither clearly leads. Height starts at Free and Shortwave at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Height or Shortwave?
Height starts at Free and Shortwave at Free.
Does Height or Shortwave run on more platforms?
Height runs on Web. Shortwave runs on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Height for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Height best used for?
Height is most often used for a product or engineering team with no dedicated project manager, where backlog upkeep currently falls on whoever has time, teams leaving jira because its configuration and administration cost more attention than the tracking is worth, a support or intake queue where incoming requests need categorising and deduplicating before anyone can plan them, startups that want tasks, chat and progress tracking in one tool rather than stitching a tracker to a chat app. Of those, a product or engineering team with no dedicated project manager, where backlog upkeep currently falls on whoever has time and teams leaving jira because its configuration and administration cost more attention than the tracking is worth are not what Shortwave is typically brought in for.
What can Height do that Shortwave cannot?
Height covers Autonomous triage, Duplicate detection, Attribute maintenance, Per-task chat. Shortwave covers AI Email Filtering, Intelligent Autocomplete, Voice-Style Composition, Meeting Scheduling.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Height: How is this different from Jira automation?

Jira automation is rule-based: you define a trigger and an action. Height's agents read the content of tasks and act on judgement, such as recognising that two tickets describe the same bug, which no rule can express.

Shortwave: Is there a free trial for Shortwave?

Yes, Shortwave offers a 14-day free trial for all paid plans with no credit card required.

Source
Height: Can we self-host it?

No. It is software as a service only, with no on-premises or private-cloud deployment. If your requirements rule out a hosted tracker, this is not a candidate.

Shortwave: What platforms does Shortwave support?

Shortwave is available on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows for full cross-platform email management.

Source
Height: What happens to our data if the company fails?

You would need an export and a migration to another tool. This is the standard risk with a single-product startup, and it is worth confirming the export path covers task history, comments and custom fields before committing to it.

Shortwave: How much AI usage do I get per plan?

Business plan includes 3 AI-powered filters and standard AI usage. Premier (2x more AI) and Max (6x more AI) plans provide increasing levels of AI feature access.

Source
Height: Does it work for non-engineering teams?

Yes, the views and custom fields are generic enough for marketing, operations or support queues. Its integrations, though, are aimed at software teams, so a non-engineering team gets less of the surrounding value.

Shortwave: What integrations does Shortwave support?

Shortwave integrates with Slack, Calendar, Notion, Asana, HubSpot, and 3,000+ apps via Tasklet.

Source
Height: Do the AI features need our tickets to be well written?

In practice, yes. Triage, deduplication and attribute maintenance work from what is written in the task, so the return is much higher on a team that already writes descriptive tickets than on one that does not.

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