Factory DroidvsGrok Build
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Factory Droid
Factory · Terminal agent
#65MCP
Panel
6.43 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.5
- Usefulness
- 7.0
- Cost
- 5.7
- Longevity
- 6.5
“Charges $200 a month for the Max plan and still governs you with rolling rate limits, so the ceiling is the product.”
Grok Build
xAI · Terminal agent
#82MCP
Panel
6.30 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.2
- Usefulness
- 6.8
- Cost
- 5.8
- Longevity
- 6.2
“The old coding model's name now survives only as an alias, which is the software equivalent of a forwarding address.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Factory Droid | Grok Build |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local, cloud, sandbox | local, sandbox |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows, web | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | 500k tokens on grok-4.6, 256k on grok-build-0.1 |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | Yes |
| Browser control | YesThe first-party Droid Control plugin (droid plugin install droid-control@factory-plugins) ships an `agent-browser` driver - a Playwright-backed CLI with Chrome DevTools Protocol support that navigates, fills forms, clicks and captures screenshots, powering /qa-test and /demo. | No |
| Sandboxed execution | YesOS-level sandboxing isolates Droid from the filesystem and network using kernel-enforced policies (https://docs.factory.ai/autonomy-and-safety/sandbox.md). | NoSandboxing uses OS primitives, Landlock on Linux and Seatbelt on macOS, rather than containers; it is off by default and must be enabled, and network blocking is enforced on Linux only. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | YesBuilt-in general-purpose, explore and plan subagents run as independent child sessions. |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | YesThrough the -p flag with streaming JSON output. |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude, GPT, Gemini, open-source and local models via BYOK | Grok |
| Bring your own model | YesCustom models via `anthropic`, `openai` or `generic-chat-completion-api` providers with your own baseUrl and apiKey, plus an AWS Bedrock block with awsRegion/awsProfile. | YesCustom model entries can be added in ~/.grok/config.toml, but a self-hosted or local base URL is not documented. |
| Local models | YesBYOK config in ~/.factory/settings.json takes a baseUrl, so Ollama (http://localhost:11434/v1), LM Studio (http://localhost:1234/v1) and vLLM are all documented targets. | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | subscription | usage |
| Starts at | $20/mo | n/a |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | No | No |
| License | proprietary | proprietary |
| GitHub stars | 41 | n/a |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Factory Droid | Grok Build | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.3 | 6.3 | Factory Droid — Pick Droid if you want one agent in the terminal, in Slack and in CI; pick OpenCode if you would rather read the source and hold the keys yourself. |
| El Crítico | 6.3 | 6.3 | no preference |
| El Profesor | 6.8 | 7.0 | Grok Build — Two structural choices carry the design: subagents run as independent child sessions with their own context, and the agent embeds in other editors over the Agent Client Protocol. |
| La Inversora | 7.0 | 6.8 | Factory Droid — Factory is selling to the org chart, with Slack, Teams, a Teams tier and Enterprise custom, and that is the buyer who tolerates rate limits, so the pricing ladder is a feature. |
| La Jefa | 6.5 | 5.8 | Factory Droid — Sixty seats on Teams is about $2,460 a month plus a rate limit nobody can budget, but the headless CI mode and Slack integration are the shape a team actually adopts. |
| El Hacker | 4.8 | 5.5 | Grok Build — Proprietary, my own API key, and custom model entries in ~/.grok/config.toml, though nothing documents pointing it at a base URL of my own. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.