OpenAI Agent Builder vs. Bubble Lab: Why We're Excited, Not Worried
OpenAI Agent Builder vs. Bubble Lab: Why We're Excited, Not Worried
When OpenAI announced Agent Builder at Dev Day this morning, my phone kept going off with messages from friends:
"How are you feeling?"
"Does this affect Bubble Lab?"
The short answer: we're not worried, we're excited. Here's why.
1. Open Source: Developer Ownership Comes First
TL;DR: Agent Builder is closed-source; Bubble Lab is fully open-source under Apache 2.0.
At Bubble Lab, we believe developers should completely own their agents, from integrations to runtime. That's why Bubble Lab is fully open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 License.
Transparency isn't just a marketing buzzword for us, it's our foundation. Every workflow, runtime trace, and execution log can be inspected, modified, and run on your own infrastructure.
2. Model Freedom: No Lock-In, No Hidden Quotas
TL;DR: Agent Builder only supports OpenAI models; Bubble Lab works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and any model on OpenRouter.
Bubble Lab is model-agnostic. You can use:
- OpenAI for reasoning
- Anthropic or Gemini for analysis
- Any model on OpenRouter for specialized tasks
We don't believe in vendor lock-in. You choose the model that best fits your workflow, not the one your platform dictates.
3. Code Exports and Infrastructure Transparency
TL;DR: Agent Builder's monitoring and infrastructure are closed; Bubble Lab's runtime and tools are fully inspectable and self-hostable.
While Agent Builder supports code exports, its monitoring and infrastructure remain closed.
This means:
- Your agent decisions, tool calls, and logs are visible only on OpenAI's dashboard
- "Tools" like web search run on OpenAI's private infrastructure
On Bubble Lab, every Bubble (tool) is fully inspectable:
- Our default web search uses Firecrawl, but you can swap it for any alternative
- You can trace exactly what's happening behind each API call
- If you self-host, nothing leaves your infrastructure
That's transparency, not abstraction.
4. Workflow Engine: Built for Real Automation
TL;DR: Agent Builder offers lightweight orchestration; Bubble Lab provides production-grade, durable workflow automation.
Agent Builder is excellent for lightweight agent deployment, but it's not a workflow automation platform.
Bubble Lab is built for production-grade orchestration:
- Durable execution with retries and state persistence
- Custom integrations with your stack
- Real-time observability and logs
- TypeScript-native code generation
We're not just letting you "run an agent." We're helping you run systems reliably.
Closing Thoughts
We're genuinely thrilled that OpenAI is putting more attention on workflow automation. It helps grow the ecosystem we care deeply about.
But our mission is different.
We're building the open, transparent, developer-first alternative, where you can actually own what you build.
Follow our journey → @bubblelab_ai
Star us on GitHub → github.com/bubblelabai/BubbleLab
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