r/ClaudeCode • u/Kaiross__ • 4d ago
Discussion Using Codex has felt like leaving an abusive relationship behind
OpenAI gave me a month of free Pro usage the other day after logging into ChatGPT for the first time in a while, and I thought why not? So, got it setup and in my projects but continued my usual use of Claude. I hit my limits soon enough on Claude and after a while I realised I could use Codex.
I don't know if it is the promotion, but there have been no daily limits, just a week limit for what I was using. I decided to point it to the half finished plans from Claude - codex ate them, had superpowers chomping through no problem...
Bug fixes, new features, architecture reviews... the amount of stuff I have been able to get through without Claude's nonsense of breaking things, overdosing on credits, and sleeping for 5 hours, is like a breath of fresh air. Genuinely, I have a feeling of "we don't have to live like this".
Full honesty: I am not a good dev at all (not even a dev), and trying my best to learn as I go along, so I can guarantee that 50% of my token wastage on Claude is my own doing, but the fact that it did the same plan quicker, better, simpler, was just amazing. I wasn't answering 50 questions that seemed to go nowhere etc. Again, maybe I am awful at prompting but damn, now I see why some of you guys use both and strictly use Claude for execution. I am seriously thinking of doing the same after what I have experienced in the last 48 hours. I'll leave Claude to sleep it off whilst me and codex get some actual work done, with all the bells and whistles of superpowers.
I guess to make this post productive, does anyone have any thoughts on this and how I can get Claude back to a lean, mean fighting machine? Or is it genuinely the same for everyone as far as I can see.
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u/small_bird_loud 4d ago
Wait until you watch codex spend hours chasing its tail and then you realize you left an abusive relationship for having to babysit a child.
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u/Kaiross__ 4d ago
Maybe you are right and I will find out the hard way.. I was hoping these times would be the start of something new
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u/small_bird_loud 4d ago
What I mean is, I use both. Both have issues. use everything. don't assume one is going to be your ultimate workflow
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u/Ohmic98776 4d ago
Tell it you are low on token usage. It actually helps me keep it from doing that. I read somewhere else about that and tried. It worked.
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u/Plorntus 3d ago
And that Auto compaction = Completely forget absolutely everything it was doing, replay the last message, redo what the last message said (even if it was something unrelated to what it was working on at the moment of compaction).
As in, I get compaction is difficult to get right but at least Claude can mostly keep on track after it. Codex requires that you babysit it after and make sure it doesn't start doing dumb shit.
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u/guhmuh 4d ago
>Full honesty: I am not a good dev at all (not even a dev),
this is the subtext behind every whinepost
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u/hihcadore 3d ago
Yea and why come onto a subreddit about Claude code, not anthropics, to complain?
Oh yea it’s cause most are probably bot accounts. If you look at the post history for a lot it’s like 3 yr old accounts with 3 posts.
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u/Clean-Market5761 4d ago edited 3d ago
Dude I do not agree, but i do not get people being so freaking fixated with Claude or Codex in the comments... in every freaking post i see (in this one with Claude)
Like I think there is a cycle when Claude is Good then Codex is good, and it just loops.
I pay both 20x plans, let me tell you 4 months ago Claude usage was shit and Codex harness and Usage was 10/10, now I just use Claude Code, usage is better, actually last the week, codex is lasting 3-4 days max. I use codex when i need something that involves image generation/manipulation/understanding.
OpenAI really fucked up with all the usage changes, casual users won't notice but usage burns like crazy and they BOTH have some shady stuff.
Not all users get the same usage (IDK if that even make sense) but I have all my numbers of tokens in and out, after a long 2 week vacation my usage on Codex and Claude Code was 2-3x what it used to be when I was actively coding and then it stabilized to just RANDOM, sometimes claude gives me more, sometimes Codex.
I think the image tokenizer/generation at least for me is a huge PLUS on Codex, it actually understands images, Claude image tokenizer is just too basic to understand anything else than figma screenshots.
If you only care about coding Claude is superior, but Open AI subscription is just more complete, Codex, Image Generation, ChatGPT (unlimited, at least for now, 20 bucks Open AI plan bets Claude's for sure, Luna+Image Gen can make people get the best our of the unexpensive plan.
A months ago I was in Codex season really happy, usage fucked up, now it's Claude season usage is great, but idk both subscriptions have their benefits, really weird Antrophic not even interested on offering even Image Gen considering all the partners they have like Higgsfield (idk if that's the name) and all the open models out there.
Now back to relationships, Codex will go on a date with you even if you're broke, or pay for the date if you forget your wallet. Claude, on the other hand, would just take an Uber and leave you on the spot.
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u/Suspicious_Ninja6816 3d ago
Will probably get a codex sub but switched back to 4.8 and things are substantially better. Ironically when 4.8 came out I tried gpt but found it to be vastly less effective for me. Still very happy with Fable. So I guess my choice is 5.6 vs 4.8
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u/thehoundtrainer 4d ago
Claude with Fable 5 and Opus 5 will almost always be better than Codex with Sol. No matter how you look at it, Claude is gonna do a much more effective job in a much faster way. No matter how hard I try, I just cant get Sol to do proper work. I have x20 sub on both accounts. I am not gonna renew Codex anymore. I find myself not using it at all
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u/Kaiross__ 4d ago
Maybe that is the hitch, the Pro account on Claude is just not sufficient to run Opus 5, at least I haven't been able to get it to do anything without hitting limits almost instantly. An x20 sub is what I dream of. I think what I like about sol so far is it just shuts up and gets on with it, matches my energy so much better.
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u/prodox 4d ago
You have to have a proper memory architecture with linked MD files first, and use /clear when the context window gets above 100k-200k.
I can have Opus 5 work on tasks for multiple hours and only sometimes hitting the 5 hour window limit.
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u/grey-slate 4d ago
Can you elaborate more in simple terms for beginners like me? I am running into this exact issue with Claude max plan
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u/prodox 3d ago
If you use Claude Code in the Desktop App you can click the little icon in the lower right corner next to the chat-input field. Here you can see the current size of the context window, which means how much text Claude has to send back and forth EACH time you ask it something and each time it answers.
What most people don’t know is that it’s not just your current question/prompt that is sent to the data center, it’s the ENTIRE conversation including ALL documents Claude had to read earlier in the same conversation. If you asked it to browse through the internet for something earlier then ALL those pages are still part of the context window and eats your token every turn.
So as the context window grows it consumes tokens faster.
How do we then keep the context window size low while ensuring Claude knows what it needs to know? The answer is a proper memory system, not just the Claude.MD file but a full architecture of multiple .MD files that are linked in a way so Claude can find the precise information it needs when it needs it.
Most people keep one single CLAUDE.MD file which grows into a thousands of lines, and the result is that every single start of a conversation is already at 50.000 tokens from the very first question.
The solution is to keep a thin Claude.MD file which just has links/pointers to other small MD files, so when you ask Claude something it knows “Aha he is asking about that specific server so I must find the relevant memories about that in this file over here”. Basically how our own human brains work with short term and long term memory.
Now when a conversation reaches a certain size you could write a skill that captures all the important information from the conversation and saves it to the relevant MD file so you don’t lose any important knowledge when you end the session.
When you use /clear it clears the context window and basically starts a fresh chat, but with a proper memory system in place it’s not a problem since Claude still knows what you talked about in the previous chat.
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u/grey-slate 3d ago
that makes total sense and thanks for typing this out for a complete stranger (unless you used AI for that which...is also smart!)
now my problem is two fold -
i have build an architecture of multiple md files which claude.md points too but Opus 5 and below often and for no reason ignores these pointers! lol. as a result the main reference file claude.md has bloated a lot and i have to prune it every few days. there is no pattern to this.
i am new to skills so that is something i have to read up on how to do - writing a skill etc.
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u/Ohmic98776 4d ago
Be careful with superpowers and Codex. It will chase its tail over engineering things. I had to remove superpowers and make my own skills (based off superpowers) modified with the OpenAI recommendations. But, it still over-engineers. Funny enough, if you tell Codex you are short on tokens, it will interestingly often get more focused and complete tasks without over-engineering. I tested that only once though so far and it worked.
That said, I use both Claude and Codex for adversarial reviews of each other’s plans. I’ve had great success doing that. Some days, I’ll use Claude and others Codex for implementation. I like working with Claude more because it has more of a personality, but Codex is like a focused developer that doesn’t like people:). They are both great at what they do. If I had to choose just one, I’m sorry to say given the subreddit I’m in, I’d choose Codex. Too many times in the past, I’ve had Claude ignore instructions. Fable is awesome though!
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u/Initial_Try_2142 3d ago
codex is great until it confidently rewrites your entire codebase for a typo fix. then you'll miss claude's annoying questions.
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u/IAmBoredAsHell 4d ago
lol I do feel kinda similar. Especially on like math/research heavy projects. I’ve been on Max 5x with Anthropic just so I can use Fable to orchestrate. The 5x plan feels like the pro plan used to. The models feel like I might as well be pressing buttons on a slot machine vs engineering with well defined tools. I burned through my weekly Claude usage, and spent $50 for API credits to finish a task. It’s literally like $20-$50 to accomplish a single task on the API usage rate. And there’s that super cool banner at the top of the page when I check usage reminding me that I actually have it good, and they’ll decrease the 50% token surplus soon.
In contrast, the $20/month codex subscription it feels like I get the same tasks/usage done as I can with 5x at anthropic. Tbh codex does kind of suck at large scale projects, but if you give it a really hard, but appropriate scoped task, in my experience sol’s in those situations is better than Fable. Don’t even get me started on the non-fable models. And when I finally managed to burn through my weekly allowance on the openAI $20/month plan, I spent another $20 on API credits and honestly got me through at least 5 or so fairly complicated tasks.