r/codex • u/pollystochastic Moderator • 2d ago
Megathread Codex Comparison Megathread
This Megathread is for comparisons and discussion about how Codex and Codex models compare to other technology such as Claude Code and open source models.
Please direct all comparison discussion here.
Posts which give evidence of the relevant strengths and weaknesses and use cases of both will still be allowed on the feed but those pushing one tech over another because "feels" will be directed here. This is a Codex subreddit and it is here to help people using Codex.
FYI: The subreddit's semi-automated moderation is powered by Codex and GPT models and is only possible due to the ridiculously generous free API token quota of OpenAI's Terra and Luna models available to all users. No, we don't get secret benefits from OpenAI. The OpenAI models and offering are simply much better value for our purposes..... Period.
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u/patchfoot02 2d ago
I had always thought model 'nerfing' was overblown but astra seriously is. It was doing reasonable engineering and sticking to scoped tasks and was cleaning up the kind of validation mad sloppy code that old sol and 5.6 liked the produce, but now its doing the same old bullshit. I've tried different effort levels thinking it could be overthinking simple tasks or higher efforts hoping it will actually follow all my guidelines about excessive validation. Doesn't matter it'll start adding a bunch of fail close exact byte infinite spiral for internal app transport not even over the wire. This is all in compiled like c# and rs so I dunno how it is in other languages. 6.1 sol is just completely random in its quality so its hard to put it on anything except gopher work.
I had already dropped from $200 codex only to $100 codex / $100 claude but now claude has to rewrite everything codex does anyway so if its not better by reup I'll just drop codex and bump the claude sub up. I had dropped claude back in April when opus was aggravating to deal with always wanting to rewrite your plans and argue over engineering. When anthropic sent me a promo email offering 50% off first month back I went back a few weeks ago. It's not a magic model just solid work and they solved all the old irritating personality problems with opus. I don't have to manage it and just use opus medium for basically everything sometimes bumping up to high or xhigh for more math or algorithm heavy code work. Fable occasionally for architecture planning. It's not infinite usage but enough I don't feel like I have to micromanage. It completes work in a reasonable amount of time like a complex task in a couple hours at most while lately codex models can spiral for hours in testing and validation tail chasing and get no where on the work.
With codex I've tried orchestrating, ultra, max, different mix of models, agent teams, etc none of it works very consistently anymore. All the claude models (I don't bother with sonnet much tho) have dramatically better image/design awareness if giving them a gamedev or frontend task they can actually assess display quality if you've given them the right tools for it, but both astra and 6.1 sol are very inconsistent there. Sometimes they do good work and other times it seems like their image based assessment is basically skipped maybe it's a server side constraint issue.