IBM Bob vs. OpenBlock

Feature	IBM Bob	OpenBlock

Tagline	Your AI SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) partner from IBM	A self-improving coding agent that handles the full dev lifecycle
Website	https://bob.ibm.com	https://openblocklabs.com/
Language	javascript	typescript
Release Date	September 2, 2025	March 16, 2026
Last Updated	May 20, 2026	May 14, 2026
Provider Type	AI Lab	Independent
MCP Support	Yes	Yes
Multi-Agent Support	Yes	Yes
Git Integration	deep	deep
Multi-File Editing	Yes	Yes
Auto Test Running	Yes	Yes
Sandbox / Permissions	Yes	Yes
Image / Multimodal Input	Yes	Yes
Voice Mode	No	No
IDE Integration	Bob IDE	None - Terminal onle
Hooks / Extensions	Yes	Yes
Web Search	Yes	Yes
Local Model Support	No	Yes
Context Window	Model-dependent	Model-dependent
Supported Models	Multi-provider (IBM-managed)	400+ via OpenRouter (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, open-source)
Pricing Model	Freemium	Freemium
Free Tier	Yes	Yes
Price Range	Free / $20-200/mo	$10-100 (credit-based)
Source Code Availability	Proprietary Software	Proprietary Software
Source Code	https://github.com/IBM/ibm-bob	N/A
Development State	active	active