In agreement. Large caveats that can explain differing opinions (that I've experienced) are:
* Is really only magic on Linux or WSL. Mediocre on Windows
* Is quite mediocre at UI code but exceptional at backend, engineering, ops, etc. (I use Claude to spruce up everything user facing -- Codex _can_ mirror designs already in place fairly well).
* Exceptional at certain languages, OK at others.
* GPT-5 and GPT-5-Codex are not the same. Both are models used by the Codex CLI and the GPT-5-Codex model is recent and fantastically good.
* Codex CLI is not "conversational" in the way that Claude is. You kind of interact with it differently.
I often wonder about the impact of different prompting styles. I think the WOW moment for me is that I am no longer returning to code to find tangled messes, duplicate silo'd versions of the same solution (in a different project in the same codebase), or strangely novice style coding and error handling.
As a developer for 20yrs+, using Codex running the GPT-5-Codex model has felt like working with a peer or near-peer for the first time ever. I've been able to move beyond smaller efforts and also make quite a lot of progress that didn't have to be undone/redone. I've used it for a solid month making phenomenal progress and able to offload as-if I had another developer.
Honestly, my biggest concern is that OpenAI is teasing this capable model and then pulls the rug in a month with an "update".
As for the topic at hand, I think Claude Code has without a doubt the best "harness" and interface. It's faster, painless, and has a very clean and readable way of laying out findings when troubleshooting. If there were a cheap and usable version of Opus... perhaps that would keep Claude Code on the cutting edge.
* Is really only magic on Linux or WSL. Mediocre on Windows
* Is quite mediocre at UI code but exceptional at backend, engineering, ops, etc. (I use Claude to spruce up everything user facing -- Codex _can_ mirror designs already in place fairly well).
* Exceptional at certain languages, OK at others.
* GPT-5 and GPT-5-Codex are not the same. Both are models used by the Codex CLI and the GPT-5-Codex model is recent and fantastically good.
* Codex CLI is not "conversational" in the way that Claude is. You kind of interact with it differently.
I often wonder about the impact of different prompting styles. I think the WOW moment for me is that I am no longer returning to code to find tangled messes, duplicate silo'd versions of the same solution (in a different project in the same codebase), or strangely novice style coding and error handling.
As a developer for 20yrs+, using Codex running the GPT-5-Codex model has felt like working with a peer or near-peer for the first time ever. I've been able to move beyond smaller efforts and also make quite a lot of progress that didn't have to be undone/redone. I've used it for a solid month making phenomenal progress and able to offload as-if I had another developer.
Honestly, my biggest concern is that OpenAI is teasing this capable model and then pulls the rug in a month with an "update".
As for the topic at hand, I think Claude Code has without a doubt the best "harness" and interface. It's faster, painless, and has a very clean and readable way of laying out findings when troubleshooting. If there were a cheap and usable version of Opus... perhaps that would keep Claude Code on the cutting edge.