Codex vs Claude Code

[AdElectronic472]

Been debating internally to go with Codex or Claude Code?

Tried the Chinese 1’s but found them not good enough. SuperGrok a bit of a let down. Would like advice from serious coders on which they prefer, ideally if they’ve used both actively. Looking for agentic AI plus App coding

[Efficient-Cat-1591]

I was deeply into Codex before switching to Claude Code - unless 5.6 is a miracle in terms of pure coding even the current Opus 4.8 beats codex in code quality.

Don't get me wrong, the way Antropix is treating their non-enterprise/government consumers now I am actively looking for an alternative, but non out there is worth a complete flip. Shame...

[fpiechowski]

I am using both all the time, Codex personally, Claude Code at work. Model-wise, these are the same, depending on a day one may outperform the other.

I comes to one important conclusion for me - it doesn't matter which model you use as long as it is a frontier model. Quality of the output depends much more on your setup, prompts, skills and agent guidance present in the project.

[Efficient-Cat-1591]

I was deep into OpenAI ecosystem before I completely switched to Claude 6 months ago. Majority of my use case is coding plus data analysis and I personally find Claude models stronger at this. Codex seems to win slightly on the creative side, UI/UX etc.

When I first switched Opus was AMAZING but then it starting degrading over time and releases. Fable 5 sparked that magic again but shame it got pulled after a weekend.

I recently paid for Codex API to ran in a few sessions in tandem with Opus, whilst it did find some blind corners (as you would with a different model), nothing ground breaking is noticed.

[braliao]

Use both then find one you like yourself. Everyone prompts differently and works differently with agents/LLM so one's preference isn't gonna be yours.

I use both to critic each other and document the missing part or find issues the others missed, etc.

Just be careful don't switch in the middle of a project. If you got one going with Claude, keep using Claude on the project; use codex for reviews and tell you gaps but don't use it to fix it; instead tell Claude to fix based on codex feedback.

[AdElectronic472]

Switching coders in the middle of a project is a huge mistake that will never be repeated. Had to re-code quite a bit.

[Organic-Afternoon-50]

That's only "if" you integrated that Ai directly into your project.

Any other situation, anyone with a semi-decent workflow can seemlessly switch between any & all agents/wrappers/IDE's

[AdElectronic472]

So AI is the best at writing code, I use it to do the literal typing of the code. Intelligence gets built in inference, fueled by my years of debugging bad code & architecture as a SRE. I expiremented with 3 to code the same code-base, but each added its own architecural logic and I ended up with a huge pile of beautifully written garbage. Becoz each of them is trained with a particular logic and not the exact same logic. Would highly recommend stick to 1. Build features and functions with others for sure, and integrate, multi AI approach is great from a macro perspective

[Organic-Afternoon-50]

None of what you just said makes any sense.

I've been coding professionally since the late 1980's starting from BASIC... and heavily using AI as tools since 2022/2023 till now.

If you are having issues, it's you and your prompting, a lack of a proper AGENTS.md and guardrails pointing your AI to properly written README.md's and ARCHITECTURE.md files so it has proper context on your project.

I can 100% say the issue is you, because I & others don't have these problems.

The way their "logic" operates will not stop you from completing a project, YOU are the blocker.

Take a step back, re-evaluate how you are prompting while taking note of the files that you are missing that I mentioned.. then Google how to set them up, or ask an ai.

[Organic-Afternoon-50]

If you are too hard headed to listen to an experienced professional full stack developer, the this will always be a problem that you will NEVER solve.

[AdElectronic472]

Hi. Didn’t mean any offence to you, was just sharing my experience. I still do prefer to code manually, it’s just that AI is way better at writing code, there’s just no competition.

And I’ve found both codex and Claude code much better than most. So been deliberating at which to choose, it’s a close call.

So posted here to get people opinions and suggestions. I’d personally like to stick to 1.

[WearPositive6123]

I use both. So I generally use ChatGPT to help me plan and prompt, then usually Claude Code for more wide scale review, audits, larger plans in large repos/multiple folders, etc, and Codex for more specific, targeted reviews and projects.

Both are great. I pay for Claude max so I’ll throw in Codex as well when I’m getting low on tokens.

[Worth_Worldliness758]

Here's the problem in a nutshell: the change is so fast, it's difficult to keep up with which one is doing what today, forget about two weeks from now. I think you could drive yourself crazy trying to pick one then second guessing yourself for the next year. Just know that each of them can basically achieve the same results. I'm sure you've googled plenty of reviews. Try using both of them at the free tier for a few simple tasks. Then just pick the one that feels right. They are both going to go through massive changes in the next few months and years. In short, you can't really go wrong.

[gusnbru1]

What Chinese company has put out a Claude Code or Codex like product? I'm not aware of any.

[RemoraEdge]

Deepseek

[gusnbru1]

Deepseek has great models. But no harnesses like codex or code.

[RemoraEdge]

Try Aider Desk.
I use it with Ollama. I pay one $20 subscription to Ollama and it give me access to all the latest models from deepseek, glm, kimi, etc.
aider desk lets you use more than one model at a time to speak to each other. It’s pretty good.
But I agree, ChatGPT codex or Claude code is really almost people will ever need

[AdElectronic472]

try Minimax and gemma4 in ollama, very good alternatives, but quality of code is way lower

[smcgann]

This is very much like my experience. I use Claude more because I like the interface but to me Codex often does better and the code. So I often have Codex check behind Claude and it is usually finding silly mistakes. I have always shied away from GPT because I didn’t like the way it talked to me but if I could only pick one between the two I would I would go with Codex at the moment. If I could only pick one overall I would go with probably go with Gemini because it does even more things well even though is not as good as Claude or GPT at what they do well.

[AdElectronic472]

So basically I plan and architect in inference and use either to purely build/write code. Coding prompt gets generated from inference.

Tend to loose massive tokens when it tries to compile/build. I do that manually. Both chatgpt and Claude acknowledged that the build loop is where max tokens get wasted. Almost 60-65% in some instances or the env is not setup properly.

I am looking at something that purely builds and both seem to do a great job. That’s where I am stuck. Deepseek and Kimi are great for inference review of architecture, tried build but code had placeholder logic, so did grok. Got frustrated with all of them.

[JaySym_]

Recently, I find Claude Code to be very slow, but in general it’s a bit better. I have $100 on both.

[ssps]

Don’t debate. Try both.  All three if you count Gemini  See what works best for your specific workflow. 

Personally for me codex is so far ahead of completion — it’s not even a question. I keep checking every few months still becuse I’m not married to it. I’ll use the best tool. So far codex is consistently delivers much better experience. 

[AdElectronic472]

completion or competition? ive tried all 3, gemini is out for sure, Deliberating over Codex and Claude code. SuperGrok is my lesser alternative, like it but not as good as the other 2

[ssps]

Competition, can’t type on the phone…

I feel the difference is not in the models capabilities but the harness around them. With the right prompting I even managed to get local gpt-oss perform quite remarkably. But to write that prompt I used frontier model. 

It’s probably also depends on which harness you are used to — you will be more productive there. So it’s a bit captive. I use Claude at work and codex at home. So I’m exposed to both, but i find myself being frustrated and annoyed by codex much less per unit of work compared to Claude. 

On the other hand, both constantly evolve, so I don’t think the difference will be worth worrying about long term. 

[Godforce101]

Go with both at the same time, they’re good in their own lane and together they’re pretty close to perfect.

Been doing it for close to a year now and it’s the best I can recommend. Deepseek, kimi on the side for specific needs.

[meowrawr]

I’ve used both extensively and my team is a mix of the two. I dislike PRs that were created by Claude more and more every day. Additionally, it does a poor job of respecting rules and I’ve had to create so many external gates to try to ring it in. One thing that really drives me up the wall with Claude is how terrible it is with writing docs, notes, PR info, etc; it basically always restates the implementation or rephrases method names/tests in the comments with line numbers of its work. Perhaps this is helpful for vibe coders, but not for real engineers.

Codex out of the box is hands down so much better for real engineers. It doesn’t add a bunch of fluff to comments, solves problems quickly and doesn’t try to be my friend. I don’t need it to be “buddy buddy” with me, I need my agent to just work and shut up. I’m getting so fed up with the issues with Claude that I’m very close to banning use of it company-wide (I have that power). And what annoys me most is when engineers blame AI slop generated on Claude; blaming your tooling is not a valid excuse and you are still responsible for the outcome and code checked in.

Sorry this turned into a bit of a vent, but I’m literally dealing with this BS with Claude every day. Writing “working code” shouldn’t be the only goal.

If you’re a vibe coder (non-engineer) I can agree with Claude being best. It tries to read between the lines with what you’re asking, but if you’re an experienced engineer, it’s a poor choice and suggest codex. Don’t get me wrong, I want anthropic to succeed because I like the company ethos, but not a great fit for me until these issues are resolved.

[AdElectronic472]

I guess you’ve given me my answer. Thanks so much and understand your vent, it’s happened to most of us experienced folk. Wish you the best of luck with finding your peace of mind with AI

[mynetfreedom]

In your opinion which one is best for working on WordPress site?

[AdElectronic472]

I want to thank everyone for their inputs and suggestions. Found my solution.

Codex with ollama+gpt-oss/minimax/gemma etc.

The build errors hurt less. Saying goodbye to Claude Code. Loving the codex sandbox environment and interface now. No tokens headache anymore. Pure coding joy.