IBM Bob vs OpenHands CLI

Feature	IBM Bob	OpenHands CLI

Tagline	Your AI SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) partner from IBM	Lightweight OpenHands CLI as a standalone AI coding agent
Website	https://bob.ibm.com	https://github.com/OpenHands/OpenHands
Language	javascript	python
Release Date	September 2, 2025	October 18, 2025
Last Updated	September 4, 2026	August 19, 2026
Provider Type	AI Lab	Independent
MCP Support	Yes	Yes
Multi-Agent Support	Yes	Yes
Git Integration	deep	basic
Multi-File Editing	Yes	Yes
Auto Test Running	Yes	Yes
Sandbox / Permissions	Yes	Yes
Image / Multimodal Input	Yes	No
Voice Mode	No	No
IDE Integration	Bob IDE	Zed, Toad, VS Code, JetBrains IDEs
Hooks / Extensions	Yes	No
Web Search	Yes	Yes
Local Model Support	No	Yes
Context Window	Model-dependent	Model-dependent
Terminal Bench		#59 · 51.9% ±2.9 (Terminal-Bench 2.0) ²
Supported Models	Multi-provider (IBM-managed)	Models from multiple providers including, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI. Compatible with 400+ OpenRouter models.
Pricing Model	Freemium	BYOK
Free Tier	Yes	Yes
Price Range	Free / $20-200/mo	Free (BYOK)
Source Code Availability	Proprietary Software	Open Source (MIT)
Source Code	https://github.com/IBM/ibm-bob	https://github.com/OpenHands/OpenHands
Development State	active	active