Ask HN: Claude Code or Codex?

9 points by czeizel 7 hours ago | 19 comments

And why? I'd genuinely like to understand who is on which side and why. I'd also like to know, if you use one of them, what kind of subscription plan you have.

(For example, I use Claude (max) [...])

kkjh0723 1 hour ago |

I use Claude Max, and I like that Fable can write code and run experiments on its own. I just check in occasionally to see how things are going and suggest the next direction. I expected Claude to be the clear favorite here, but there are more Codex users than I thought, so now I’m tempted to give it a try. That said, GPT translated this comment for me.

OleksandrC 5 hours ago |

One significant advantage of Codex subscription over Claude is that you can use any agent harness with it. Meanwhile Anthropic insists that Claude subscription must only be used with Claude Code itself - and I have significant gripes with the quality of Claude Code in general.

Also, Fable access was now removed from small 20$ Claude plan, while Codex includes access to comparable model (gpt-5.6-sol) even on small subscription.

theowaway213456 43 minutes ago | |

You can also build your own harness for Claude, right? I think that's not against their ToS?

Not saying it's ideal, just saying it's an option

dimonb19a 3 hours ago |

Each model has a different personality. There is some real layer underneath but it also depends on how you use it. For me GPT is a nerd and Claude i consider like a senior dev with deep knowledge. I use GPT only for audits and serious code logic because it can catch gaps and inconsistencies that Claude misses. But it always depends on your mindset, i think what really matters is a loop - you plus AI.

beecasthurlbow 4 hours ago |

I’ve been using both, but I find 5.6 sol is faster in terms of wallclock time and far less chatty (on my small projects in non-legacy code bases).

It “feels” like Sol gets off track more easily than Fable (it’s hard for Sol to ignore a stray remark). My theory is this comes from smaller context window - Codex uses a 350K token context window (that you can’t change), even though model can handle more…

palguna26 3 hours ago |

I personally use Codex(plus) a lot, with sol+ponytail, u get concise to the point answers rather than long explanation that openai models are known for, and till date im really satisfied with its coding performance. I also use opencode to try out new openweight models as well, currently im testing out k3.

217 7 hours ago |

https://github.com/can1357/oh-my-pi

https://stencil.so/blog/prewalk

most advanced, configurable and capable harness of all time, and i use both 200$ subs with it. Has a huge learning curve though so if you're not into that i'd go with whatever you already use the most

czeizel 7 hours ago | |

hadn't come across either of these before, thanks. using both behind the same harness sounds really interesting.

do you still choose claude vs codex depending on the task, or has the harness made them mostly interchangeable? what took the longest to learn?

217 5 hours ago | | |

It's vibes mostly. Like, fable is better on frontend while 5.6sol is better at long running tasks with a lot of subtasks, harness did made them mostly interchangeable as well as able to have them both participate in solving a hard issue. Longest to learn is the ui (I'm more of a GUI guy but this is just too good) and all hundreds of features where you want to do something and then discover the harness already supports it out of the box but you never knew it, yet

Squeeze2664 3 hours ago |

I heavily use the Pi harness with DeepSeek-v4-pro directly from the DeepSeek API almost exclusively and I have have barely ever felt the need for something different. I have some OpenRouter credits and API key ready to go if DeepSeek fails me, and that almost never happens. It's also unbelievably cheap - so cheap, in fact, that I have started using it even for trivial tasks. I use it for coding, code review, managing my systems in general, and even regular-old-questions. Pi is minimal in many regards including system prompt, tools, and UI, and I found this quality much more preferable than what the other harnesses provide. Currently I use only two extensions to extend Pi's capabilities: a web search tool and a page fetch tool. I might look into getting more as the need arises.

I used to be a heavy Claude Code user but I ended my subscription around the time this Fable nonsense started, as I really don't like the direction Anthropic is taking. I now spend less, get more done, have a better time doing it, and feel better about it.

alex7o 5 hours ago |

Somebody had shared https://harnessrank.net/ but in reality I use Claude code as I am afraid to be banned

no-name-here 7 hours ago |

> For example, I use Claude (max) [...]

What does […] mean in the OP post body? That you use other solutions than the 1 mentioned but are omitting them?

czeizel 7 hours ago | |

no, sorry for the confusion. i meant [...] as a placeholder for the rest of the answer, as in: "i use claude (max) because of x, y and z..." not that i'm omitting other solutions.

- OP

Talpur1 5 hours ago |

I mostly use claude, its actually good at context specially opus 4.8

Grapeeee 3 hours ago |

of course codex, its more humanlike

czeizel 3 hours ago | |

what makes it feel more humanlike to you - the way it reasons through problems, the tone of the responses, or is it simply more comfortable to work with day to day?

dimonb19a 3 hours ago | |

For me it is opposite

czeizel 3 hours ago | | |

interesting, that probably shows how subjective "humanlike" is here! thx for your reply!

kingkongjaffa 6 hours ago |

I have personally been a heavy claude code user since it launched, I have a claude subscription at home and my employer pays for a claude account at work.

Until the launch of Fable I'd been very happy with claude code besides the outages where it could be offline for hours.

When Fable released it was a good step up from using Opus.

When it was taken away and then reinstated under some weird billing and vague notion of how it would be available in the long run, I noticed the model itself was worse than the brief time it was up before the US gov shut it down.

Now I'm evaluating Codex at home for personal use. I may switch to using chatGPT at home and whatever work provides (which is currently Claude).

Codex and 5.6 Sol seem just as good as Opus and Fable right now, but I only have 1-2 weeks testing.

Keeping the flagship models in the basic subscription is the main driver for me evaluating chatGPT again, I hadn't really used it since about GPT4 (I missed all of the O-models like o1, o3) and I moved to Claude when it was clearly better.

The ergonomics of claude skills are better than codex's agent skills imo.

ChatGPT and codex have more generous usage limits it seems.

jdw64 4 hours ago |

I use both. Claude I use up to 5, and Codex I use up to 20 for PRO.

Personally, I think Codex is better. Aside from the frequent resets, since the Fable incident, there have been cases where connections drop. For writing code, Codex generally does a better job. That said, I feel Fable is better for overall structure, but ultimately, it varies from person to person. I use both as my coding assistants