Key takeaways
  • Dust is built as a broad AI-operator platform: a web app first, with Slack and Microsoft Teams as connected surfaces. Bob is Slack-first, with Microsoft Teams in early access.
  • Dust is genuinely ahead on webhook filtering (natural language compiled to server-side filters) and agents-as-tools (agents calling other agents as tools, in parallel).
  • Dust is SOC 2 Type II certified and enables HIPAA compliance. Bob does not currently publish either certification.
  • Dust prices per seat and resets credits every billing period with no rollover. Bob pools credits for the whole workspace and rolls unused credits over one month.
  • Dust shows a credit cost after each message; it does not publish duration, tool-call count, or model name alongside it. Bob's receipt includes all three plus who approved any write.

What Dust is

Dust (dust.tt) is a platform for building and running AI agents across a company's tools and knowledge, used by teams it calls "AI Operators." It connects to 70+ data sources and tools, gives every seat access to 20+ frontier models, and lets agents call other agents as tools for more complex workflows. Slack and Microsoft Teams are both supported integrations into that platform, alongside a web app that is the primary place work happens.

What Bob is

Bob connects to 3,200+ apps and works across them from Slack, with Microsoft Teams in early access. Every run executes in its own sandboxed cloud computer, external writes pause for an Approve/Deny button by default, and every completed task posts a compact receipt with total credits, duration, tool-call count, and model name. Workspaces can set a hard monthly spend cap with a warning at 80%, reruns caused by Bob's mistakes are free, and Enterprise customers can deploy Bob inside their own VPC.

Where Dust is ahead

Two things are worth saying plainly, because a comparison page that never concedes anything isn't a comparison. Dust's webhook system lets you describe, in natural language, exactly which events from GitHub, Jira, Zendesk, Linear, or Fathom should wake an agent, and it compiles that description into a server-side filter for you; custom webhook sources get a full Lisp-style filter expression language. And Dust agents can call other agents as tools, in parallel, which is a cleaner way to compose specialist agents into a bigger workflow than most of this category has shipped. Bob does not have an equivalent to either today.

Dust also holds SOC 2 Type II certification and states its platform enables HIPAA compliance, alongside GDPR compliance, per its public security page. Bob does not currently publish SOC 2 or HIPAA certification. If compliance paperwork is the gating requirement, that is a real point in Dust's favor and we are not going to spin it.

What Bob connects to

An AI employee is only as useful as the systems it can reach. If the work lives in a tool Bob cannot open, you are back to copying and pasting, and the whole promise collapses. So the answer has to be boring and complete: Bob reaches 3,200+ apps, and connecting one takes a sentence in Slack and a sign-in.

Ask in the channel ("connect HubSpot"), Bob posts a Connect button, you sign in once on the hosted page, and that connection is ready for every run after it. Personal tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, HubSpot, and Linear connect per person, so a request runs against your row in the CRM and your inbox, under your own role, not a shared service account's.

What your team runsApps Bob works in (examples)
CRM and pipelineHubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive
Inbox and calendarGmail, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook
Docs and spreadsheetsGoogle Sheets, Google Drive, Notion, Microsoft Excel
Tickets and projectsJira, Linear, Asana, ClickUp, monday
Support queuesZendesk, Intercom, Front
Money and billingStripe, QuickBooks, Xero
StorefrontShopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce
Code and incidentsGitHub, GitLab, Sentry
Meetings and signaturesZoom, Google Meet, Docusign, Calendly

The catalog is the shortcut, not the ceiling. If your tool is not in it, Bob can work through its API, through an MCP server, or through the same browser your team uses, and for a core internal system we can build the connection. The full list is on the integrations page.

Whose side is your credit balance on?

Dust's Business tiers charge per seat and reset each seat's credit allowance every billing period, with no rollover of unused credits, per Dust's own credits documentation. That is a common shape for this category, and it means an idle seat's credits simply expire rather than banking toward a busier month.

Bob is built the other way: one pooled credit balance for the whole workspace, so a quiet week for one person covers a busy week for another. Unused plan credits roll over one month before expiring, a hard monthly spend cap you set is enforced rather than advisory, and reruns caused by Bob's mistakes are free.

Side by side

What a buyer can verifyDustBob
Pricing model
Per seat: Free (€0, 500 lifetime credits), Pro (€24/seat/mo, 8,000 credits), Max (€120/seat/mo, 40,000 credits), custom Enterprise
No per-seat fee: pooled workspace subscription from $99/mo; custom Enterprise
Entry offer
Permanent free tier, no card, 500 credits for the life of the account
$100 in credits, no card; expires after 14 days
Connected apps
70+ connectors, plus up to 5 remote MCP servers on Business (unlimited on Enterprise)
3,200+ managed connectors, plus API, MCP, and browser access
Model choice
Model is chosen per agent when it's built, with a one-off per-message override in the conversation input bar; a persistent personal default distinct from a workspace default is not listed in docs reviewed August 23, 2026
A default model can be set per person and per workspace, so one person can run a cheaper or stronger model than the workspace default
Whose access a run uses
Some connectors (Confluence, Databricks) offer a personal credential type that inherits the connecting user's own permissions, as an alternative to a shared workspace credential set at setup; whether personal always takes precedence over shared is not listed in docs reviewed August 23, 2026
Connections are personal: a run uses the connecting person's own access, and a personal connection takes precedence over a shared one
API and MCP for outside systems
Documents a public REST API (docs.dust.tt/reference) to create conversations and messages and stream results; a Dust-hosted MCP server for external systems to call is not listed in docs reviewed August 23, 2026
HTTP API and MCP server, so other systems can start work and read results, not only Slack
Credit rollover
Seat credits reset each billing period; unused credits do not carry over, per Dust's credits documentation
One month (top-up packs never expire)
Bring your own model keys
Not listed in public product or pricing docs reviewed August 23, 2026; every plan instead includes 20+ frontier models on Dust's own provider relationships
$349/mo flat: paste your own Anthropic and OpenAI keys, runs execute on your keys at your rates, credits then meter only Bob's infrastructure at a fifth of the managed rate, with 20,000 credits/mo included
Per-task cost visibility
Shows the credit cost after each message in the conversation, including sub-agent cost; duration, tool-call count, and model name are not documented alongside it
Compact receipt on every completed run: credits, duration, tool-call count, and model, posted with the answer
Monthly spend cap
Enterprise lists "advanced credit controls"; a self-serve hard cap is not listed in public product or pricing docs reviewed August 23
Built in on every plan, with an 80% warning
Free reruns after a bad result
Not listed in public product or pricing docs reviewed August 23
Included
Approvals before external writes
Tools are staked low/medium/never-ask; medium-stake writes pause for an Accept/Reject confirmation, configurable per tool
Approve/Deny gate on writes by default, visible in the thread, with an Always allow that an admin can grant per tool
Webhook triggers
Natural language compiled to a server-side filter for built-in sources (GitHub, Jira, Zendesk, Linear, Fathom); a full filter expression language for custom sources
An incoming webhook any system can call; filtering what it acts on is described in plain instructions to Bob, not a compiled filter language
Agents as tools
Agents can run other agents as tools, including in parallel
Not listed in public product or docs pages reviewed August 23
Sandbox or VM for agent runs
Not listed as a native capability; code execution is available through the third-party Val Town integration
Every run executes in its own sandboxed cloud computer
Run in your own VPC
Enterprise offers single-tenant deployment and EU or US regional hosting; deployment inside a customer's own VPC is not listed in public docs reviewed August 23
Enterprise deployment inside your own VPC, custom pricing
Compliance certifications
SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR compliant, and states it enables HIPAA compliance
Not currently published
Platforms
Web app (primary), Slack, Microsoft Teams, API
Slack, Microsoft Teams (early access)

Which one should you pick?

Pick Dust if…

  • SOC 2 Type II or HIPAA is a hard requirement today.
  • You want agents that call other agents as tools, or natural-language webhook filtering.
  • Your team is happy working from a dedicated web app, with Slack as one surface among several.

Pick Bob if…

  • You want the work to happen and finish inside Slack, not in a separate app.
  • You want a full receipt (credits, duration, tool calls, model) on every run, not just a credit number.
  • You want one pooled workspace credit balance instead of per-seat allowances that reset unused.
  • You want a hard cap on monthly spend, enforced, not advisory, and free reruns on Bob's mistakes.
  • You need Bob deployed inside your own VPC.

Either way: an AI employee that finishes work beats a chatbot that drafts suggestions. The category is right; pick the platform shape and the accountability model you can live with.

Switching?

Early customers switching from another AI-employee platform get the credits remaining on their existing commitment matched, and Bob performs the migration itself during onboarding: it reads your recurring tasks and playbooks and rebuilds them in your workspace.

Fair questions

Is Bob a good Dust alternative?

It depends what you are optimizing for. Dust is a broader AI-operator platform with best-in-class webhook filtering, agents-as-tools, and SOC 2 Type II plus HIPAA compliance. Bob is narrower and Slack-first: every run posts a full receipt (credits, duration, tool calls) in the channel, workspaces set a hard monthly spend cap, and bad runs rerun free.

How is Bob's pricing different from Dust's?

Dust's public Business pricing is per seat: Free at no cost with 500 lifetime credits, Pro at €24/seat/month for 8,000 credits, and Max at €120/seat/month for 40,000 credits, with credits resetting each period and no rollover. Bob has no per-seat pricing: Flex starts at $99/month for 2,000 pooled credits shared by the whole workspace, with unused credits rolling over one month. Enterprise pricing on both sides is custom.

Does Dust have SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance?

Yes. Dust's security page states it is SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR compliant, and enables HIPAA compliance. Bob does not currently publish SOC 2 or HIPAA certification, so if that is a hard requirement, Dust is the stronger fit today.

Does Bob support Microsoft Teams like Dust does?

Both offer a Microsoft Teams surface. Dust's Teams integration is generally available; Bob's is in early access, and Slack is where Bob is most mature today.

Do Bob's credits expire?

Unused plan credits roll over one month before expiring, and one-off top-up packs never expire. Trial credits ($100 in value, no card required) last 14 days. Dust's seat credits reset each billing period with no rollover, per Dust's own documentation.

Dust is a trademark of its respective owner. HeyBob and Bob are products of Tiny Cloud Ventures, which is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Dust. This comparison is provided for informational purposes; details rechecked August 23, 2026 against Dust’s public site and documentation.