IBM Bob vs. Poolside Agent CLI

Feature	IBM Bob	Poolside Agent CLI

Tagline	Your AI SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) partner from IBM	Work with Poolside Agents from your terminal
Website	https://bob.ibm.com	https://docs.poolside.ai/cli/pool
Language	javascript	go
Release Date	September 2, 2025	October 25, 2025
Last Updated	May 20, 2026	June 25, 2026
Provider Type	AI Lab	AI Lab
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	No
Voice Mode	No	No
IDE Integration	Bob IDE	Poolside Assistant, VS Code, Visual Studio
Hooks / Extensions	Yes	No
Web Search	Yes	Yes
Local Model Support	No	No
Context Window	Model-dependent	(Point) 64K - 128K (Malibu, Laguna)
Supported Models	Multi-provider (IBM-managed)	Laguna M.1, Laguna XS.2, Malibu, Point and OpenRouter with over 300+ supported models.
Pricing Model	Freemium	Subscription
Free Tier	Yes	Yes
Price Range	Free / $20-200/mo	$0, Enterprise
Source Code Availability	Proprietary Software	Proprietary Software
Source Code	https://github.com/IBM/ibm-bob	https://github.com/poolsideai/pool
Development State	active	active