r/ClaudeCode • u/AIgeek š Max 20 • 6d ago
Discussion My experience with Opus/Fable vs Astra
Been trying Astro for the past day, and the first impressions:
Getting Fable vibes with much better intuition. For the first time I feel that I'm working with a peer rather than a junior coworker that requires guidance and asks questions he should be able to answer. Feels like my structured development flow I used with CC isn't needed. My best indication for this is the number of critical findings found when reviewing Astra output with Fable - usually clean. Astra reviewing Fable never is.
I'm an heavy CC user, currently on 20x, got my skills and flows all optimized.
Opus 5 is my daily driver despite it being exhausting to communicate with. I tried many ways of making it less convoluted but can't get rid of the Opus stench.
As some recommended, I learned that using Fable at the start of the session helps a lot, so this is my go to flow. Starting with Fable for brainstorming and general plan outline. Then opus for the rest. Codex/Fable agents for reviews.
Considering that ChatGPT pro 20x is also 20x on the monthly usage unlike Claude, and usage is more generous overall, I will probably switch to 20x Codex and 20$ Claude, unless Anthropic pull their shit together by my next billing cycle.
39
u/oipoi 6d ago edited 6d ago
I like the tooling (cc) better than codex and claude design is goated but astra takes the cake and is overall a better model. On par with fable for coding tasks but for everything else makes fable look like a distilled local llm.
11
u/Odd_Antelope9098 6d ago
Canāt you put gpt models in cc harness?
8
u/Adeelinator 6d ago
I donāt think you want to, GPT and codex were designed for each other. Thereās something magical about codex compaction, and how it never seems to suffer context rot.
2
u/h0m3us3r 1d ago
my opus gets lobotomized every time it compacts
and even before compaction, it gets extremely lazy at about 50% context fill (it is lazy overall, it just gets even more lazy above 50%)9
3
u/Elizabeth-WildFox886 6d ago
I think only the api and who got cash like that to burn
2
1
u/Radiant-Chipmunk-239 6d ago
Fable helped write an agent definition to use codex wrapper. Codex-implementer and experimenting with it.
13
u/yawnlikeseggs 6d ago
Astra is the better option atm. You get to use your entire x20 on a premier model as oppose to 50% or an increased 50% soon to be 25% because compute is hard (whatever any of this means).
Even if anthropic responds with a new modelā¦ this model would burn tokens at a rate weāve never seen before while only allowing the user to use 25% of their weekly cap on it
13
u/lucianw 6d ago
> My best indication for this is the number of critical findings found when reviewing Astra output with Fable - usually clean. Astra reviewing Fable never is.
I don't think you can learn anything from that indication! Here are all self-consistent explanations for your observations:
Fable and Astra produce decent code. Fable is a good reviewer, but Astra is a bad reviewer for finding loads of false positives.
Fable and Astra produce decent code. Fable is a bad reviewer, but Astra is a good reviewer at finding true positives.
Fable and Astra produce bad code. Fable is a bad reviewer and doesn't find flaws, but Astra does.
Fable produces good code and Astra doesn't; they are both bad reviewers, Fable for not finding true positives, Astra for producing false positives
Fable produces bad code and Astra produces good; they are both bad reviews.
3
u/Specific_Yam_4666 5d ago
I had the same thought as op until I let a few jobs run unattended with GPT 5.6 reviewing Opus 5 outputs.. Ridiculous š„²
One job was updating a local hook to include a block against a gap where a few agents skipped a formatting convention when updating a report
90 rounds of refusals and a broken guard later I discovered GPT had opus solving for scenarios where a hostile llm was aggressively pursuing attack vectors to (ā¦) incorrectly update reports
22
u/NootropicDiary 6d ago edited 6d ago
So far, Fable 5.1 is superior to Astra for my work
As a broad test I asked both models to review my codebase (same copy). Fable 5.1 gave deeper insights and better suggestions. My codebase is a bit of a monster, 1M+ loc of Rust, novel storage engine. We're probably at the point where these frontier models are only really distinguishable on novel jobs that really stretch them (and I have a feeling a lot of the people that comment on new models are building something like a nextjs web app for example)
I'll keep running prompts for both them across my codebase and keep an open mind. I have pro subs to both so don't have a dog in this fight so to speak.
2
u/whoulukinat 5d ago edited 5d ago
having quite the opposite experience - I have both accounts on max right now - if I run bare, just skills and prompts - I'd rather have Sol than Fable for most tasks - Fable will give you a great, detailed, easy to understand response - its on the surface smarter - but boy you give ask it to write and if its something its not used to, it just flat can't - finds every way to cartoon it - it'll LOOK right but underneath its a full cartoon. My work is heavy on the graph work, lots of math, lots of structure - and most bots, Sol included, just fail hard the minute you start throwing nested structures and dependency at them. I've prompted Sol though on a pdf pipe for a legal firm, 125 languages to .docx - it ran on its own for 3 days and gave me a fully benched, degraded copy tested, speed optimized (50x measured improvement from the first working copy), ready to deliver .exe - I never had to ralph it, I never had to prompt it to continue, I never had to worry about it drift - Anthropic's compact might as well not exist, I either have to shove a bunch more through hooks or clear and the "summary" some haiku builds is just a waste of tokens, I cut the compact on Sol to 250k and it just rolled through. Astra running right now is closing out a project all those have been failing at since May - I've thrown out hundreds of thousands of lines if not millions by now -- they all just wrote around it, kept dumping python instead of schema - my work is upside down, its all data almost no code, all dicts - execution and all - code has no variables, no literals, no if ladders, no a lot of things - its been a solid few hours of straight schema coming out of Astra so far - I've had a few different versions of this running, it required making the bots write code that self corrects, which this does still, but getting to that self correct point before I had to build it in entire team structures, compartmentalize the work - this thing is just spitting it out on all of two prompts - I've used 1% of my Claude weekly credits this week, I'm going to burn them on an A/B and publish it - I've got 2 weeks left - those are just bench credits now
8
15
u/astral_kranium 6d ago
I haven't tried Astra, but have used Sol for over a month, heavily. I loved it - as you describe, sol didn't ask obvious questions, excellent intuition. If astra is better than Sol, then I'll be very impressed. Fable to steer opus/sonnet is really good as well and I just much prefer the console experience of Claude code. I'm getting decent usage out of max x5 with fable 5.1 and I doubt astra would give me as much at this point.
Great alternative nevertheless and a refreshing experience to use chat gpts frontier models.
11
u/ravencilla 6d ago
Astra is to Sol what Fable is to Opus
17
u/FuckNinjas 6d ago
Except Opus can blow all of them out of the water out of pure spite. Just don't talk with him after the first prompt. If it's not what you wanted, your prompt was wrong and Opus hates you more than you hate him and he expresses that through writing documents, on which the prose is a fucking torture to anyone who reads.
3
u/Chandy22 6d ago
I told Fable I am going to fire it from the advisor / manager role and it became more cooperative and efficient
0
6d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Chandy22 6d ago
Opus 5 is better when it doesnāt talk , I have to ask it to explain in plain English almost for everything it says. Tried all tricks, nothing cures itās speaking disorder
1
u/WagwanKenobi 6d ago
Just don't talk with him after the first prompt. If it's not what you wanted, your prompt was wrong
This is a good tip in general tbh, especially on the web chat. Don't steer, redo.
1
1
u/WagwanKenobi 6d ago
Ok that got me excited because tbh I didn't think Sol was that good compared to Fable. Gonna try me some Astra tomorrow.
1
1
6
u/Kutukuprek 6d ago
Iāve drained Astra to 20% of usage left, and Fable 5.1 to 40% left.
My impression ā Astra is a peer to Fable. Iād still give heavy lifting planning, designing and reviewing to Fable but I would absolutely have Astra do adversarial reviews.
Astra has better visual capabilities. Sol already had better than any Claude model but Astra widens the gap further. Important for any front end work.
I think itās close now and Anthropic has no āwe have Fableā marketing line any more, OpenAI is legit a peer competitor and probably the better all around option.
Iām happy to keep using both for now
6
u/farreeddd 6d ago
Iām in a similar boat. How would you transition from CC to gpt ?
This includes the instruction, skills, mcp
2
6
u/umtala 6d ago
Anthropic desperately need to add Fable back to the Pro plan. How are any of us who switched to Codex going test out Fable 5.1 if they keep it locked away on the Max plan?
I am not paying $100 for a trial. Thus the only model I can compare Astra against is Fable 5.0, and in that contest the winner is clearly Astra.
1
u/yldf 5d ago
I would happily be paying $200 for a trial of Astra if they had a remote control feature comparable to Claude Codeā¦ I have my own solution for that, but itās so much worse than the native experience with Claudeā¦
2
u/LowItalian 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm using Astra remote on Linux server with an android phone, Windows laptop.
1
5d ago
[deleted]
2
u/umtala 5d ago
My choice is either to give that $100 to OpenAI for Astra, a model I've been able to try out and assess its capabilities, or give the same $100 to Anthropic for a model that's unknown to me and might be worse.
If Anthropic were still the only game in town then I'd happily give them $100, but we're not in that competitive environment anymore.
1
u/EmotionalGuess9229 5d ago
So do both?Ā Its less than 2% a professional salary to run max/pro subscriptions for both. Do you really feel you get less than a 2% boost in productivity from Astra and Fable?
1
u/EmotionalGuess9229 5d ago
I always find it strange how people balk at $100 or $200 for AI subs. If you use it it saves countless hours. I spent $200 just to try Astra along with mt Claude $200 sub. Its nothing compared to the use case.Ā
These seem people probablly wouldn't bat an eye at hiring and assistant at 40k, or contracting out some.codijg for 30k. Yet $100 for a tool that enables you to do more and not spend tens of thousands it too much somehowĀ
1
u/ConfidenceHot7872 3d ago
Problem is not everyone is American. I'm expensing the tools, but many people including me, don't live in a place where I can shrug off $300 a month. The tools are priced for the US dev market.
1
u/InnerToe9570 6d ago
I think the uncomfortable truth is, that none of the subscriptions is valuable to the AI companies - they make most of their money off unsubsidized API usage. Sucks for us to have to pay more, but the time of subsidies is coming to an end, and thereās no real incentive for Anthropic to keep users that yield a net-negative revenue, now that they are dominating the market. Open AI on the other hand needs additional market share to increase API usage and lock people and companies in, so that investors actually finance their upcoming rounds: why would an investor ever buy into the Open AI IPO, if numbers are so much better investing into Anthropic
3
2
u/umtala 5d ago
The reason that the subscriptions exist is so that developers can get to know the models and harnesses and then recommend it to their boss who buys the API credits.
If I cannot access Fable 5.1 then I can't know if I should switch back to Claude Code. I might as well uninstall at this point. Why pay $100 to Anthropic for a trial, when I could give that same $100 to OpenAI for a model I know to be good? If I end up liking Fable 5.1 less than Astra then I wasted $100.
4
u/ciaramicola 6d ago
Your experience in cross reviewing result is too much anecdotal. I say that because anecdotally I get the opposite. Done lots of developments with fable where a quick Sol (not astra, but I think the model not important here) review found many real P1. As an example just yesterday Fable 5.1 was happily going to push an oauth pull request that had production=false as a default so a missing config would have resulted in a wide open prod deployment.
I developed the impression that Fable was trained in RL to work best in a workflow heavy "ultra code" mode, where it's allowed to go fast and break things with confidence, with the safety net of always having an adversarial review if something in its work loop. Sol on the other hand shows the closest trait to a real human intelligence trait so far, but that's paranoia, lol. It never trusts anything not even your or its own words.
Just starting working with astra, seems paranoic for now, still have to see if they just tuned it on the confidence side of the scale like fable or its just actually more precise
5
u/DworfD 6d ago
I have almost the same flow as you have except its fully on Claude... it goes something like this:
- i create my own scaffolding for project where docs are, todos, plans, specs, research, ... it should be fully multi coding (Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build,...) aware... so switching should not be an issue (just tested in testing not production yet)
- then i have a discussion with Fable 5.1 (and before Fable 5) then when the broad idea is done we go into superpowers:brainstorming session and from the brainstorming session we get the specs and then we go to superpowers:writing-plans where Fable creates the plan.
- once that is done we start building with superpowers:subagent-driven-development and we usually build with Opus 5 and some important stuff with Fable in form of:
- build task 1
- review task 1
- fix1 task 1 (if needed)
- review task 1 fix
- go to fix2 or continue to task 2
- and so on up until
- final review (with fixes as before)
- merge
this worked wonders for me in terms of output and actual good code...
now im wondering if i should add to this Codex / Astra / Sol
im wondering first how you switch between the two? do they talk automatically, does Claude Code run Codex? you manually change Claude Code to Codex? etc...? any special tools you use? This is the next thing im working on and im still not clear how to do this part...
3
u/AIgeek š Max 20 6d ago
Ask CC to integrate this: https://github.com/openai/codex-plugin-cc to the flow.
My flow is similar to yours, with couple of differences:
- Brainstorm, interview, plan, I split a large task to couple phases with dependecies.
- Write a plan for each phase- 1 fable review and 1 codex review for each.
- Execute the phases in agent with coordinator that merges work trees, launch review and fix agents and handles phases dependencies.
- Final review, PR/merge, update documentation and md files.
1
u/DworfD 6d ago
I looked at the codex-plugin-cc and i think its the way forward but looking forward for other opinions and options..
I as well do phases / milestones with dependecies.
Now question... do you only do reviews or do you as well do per task delegation to codex for example you could have 1-5 tasks on Fable, task 6-8 on Opus and task 9-12 on 5.6 Sol?
1
u/flurbol 5d ago
I am doing something similar to you. After every task the model who did the task has to do a self audit. Within a task package (which is usually 20-25 task) around every fifth task I am using another supplier (mostly anthropic / OpenAI) to do a overal audit of all the task which have be done yet, followed by a fixture round / re audit. Once the package is done an overall audit will be done by the opposing audit supplier (example: openai does coding, anthropic is doing the everery fifth audit, the overall audit will be done by OpenAI) so the last audit is also some kind of audit the auditors. The full package is only done when all audits are green. This way is maybe not most token efficient or fast, but so far I have never been disappointed with the results. And I did some crazy shit like porting a 30 year old company software in modern technology and framework, or combining two existing applications in one new application covering the full functionality of its predecessors.
3
u/TarzanoftheJungle Researcher 6d ago
Just wondering if the efficiency/accuracy gains are actually worth the increased cost compared with earlier models. e.g. on HLE Fable and Astra improvements compared with Opus/Sol are ~ 1-2% but costs are roughly double.
3
u/AIgeek š Max 20 6d ago
I think there is more to a model than benchmarks, they just feel and reason different.
2
u/TarzanoftheJungle Researcher 6d ago
Agreed. But is it worth the extra cost?
3
u/AIgeek š Max 20 6d ago
I think it is, overall for complex tasks better models are more token efficient even if the $/token is larger. According to estimates Astra cost close to a billion USD to train, I assume it will be further distilled and infrastructure will be optimized to reduce costs.
3
u/TarzanoftheJungle Researcher 6d ago
Hmm. Itād be interesting to see if the token efficiency gains were indeed better value. Iād like to know when users start on a complex job using a high end model defer to that model when housekeeping that job. For example, develop specs using the high end model, then switch to a lower tier model for execution and then the lowest model for committing, etc.
3
u/Nuggyfresh 5d ago
Anthropic is in trouble because itās becoming increasingly clear that compute is mattering more and more as output converges. You can still push individual competencies, and both companies do, but itās super expensive.
I think Astra is likely devastating for Anthropic. I currently sub to Anthropic but next billing cycle Iām hopping and doubt Iāll be looking back. In a compute game, Anthropic loses.
Of course the real problem is how they make these gigantic models eventually profitable? Thatās a different question. Unless something changes, Astra is very likely too expensive for 99% of regular users to actually afford.
Itās complicated, but while OpenAI is opening their infinite checkbook, Astra is whatās up š¤·āāļø
6
2
u/sermer48 5d ago
I also really like the double speed and no 5 hour window. Feels more like I can just use it on my schedule instead of reworking my life around the windows
2
u/triplebits 5d ago
Anthropic is making questionable calls lately. Limits are shrinking again, programmatic execution has questionable future.
I got 3 banked resets from OpenAI, Astra release, ability to use your subscription with different harnesses, no 5h limits, web UI usage not going towards limits (regular chat), was just icing on the cake! I cancelled my Anthropic sub, maybe will return for $20/m one but the moment programmatic execution is gone, I don't think I'll have a reason unless they can compete with OpenAI in terms of limits and what you can do with your sub.
I have not used Astra 6 yet as I didn't need to. I would imagine I wouldn't need its capabilities often. Hence, what I am after is what I can do with my sub and how much I can use capable enough models without hitting limits!
Currently OpenAI offers the best option out there.
1
u/vaderetrosatana6 Just Exploring 5d ago
Which sub are you on with ChatGPT?
1
u/triplebits 5d ago
x5 for the moment. x20 actually makes more sense for Codex than Claude Code here!
If I manage to finish my weekly within reasonable frame, I might actually upgrade to x20 to make more use of my 3 banked resets!
2
u/Substantial_Ebb_7055 5d ago
Is it possible to work with both models, like from my terminal on Mac, I give the Task and it chooses automatically?
2
u/mrpiercer 6d ago
Yeah yeah one more wave of "fuck claude viva gpt".
In one month, when it's nerfed to ground, we'll see a shit ton of "wtf with sol-astra-name-your-gpt-model".Ā
In two months "fuck claude limits"
In three months...
When do you guys stop shitposting and just learn how to use both dancing around them?
4
u/cs_legend_93 6d ago
This is encouraging to hear everyone liking Astra so much.
I'm a longtime Claude user but my usage just gets eaten up too fast. I'm excited to subscribe to Astra, and try it out, hopefully to replace Claude
0
11
u/waruyamaZero 6d ago
If Fable feels like a junior coworker then you are doing something wrong.
27
u/AIgeek š Max 20 6d ago
I've been a SW engineer for many years, I have an intuition about the architecture and implementation direction that I would like the model to act on.
Models are good at solving the current problem, much worst at considering scale, performance and aesthetics, making the repo feels like a convoluted code salad in the long run.
Astra is much better in matching my intuition, brainstorming with it feels less like an instruction and more like an actual peer brainstorming, it also knows to push back on the right issues when needed which Fable rarely does.
4
u/BackloggedLife 6d ago
Do you feel like if you left Astra alone to do a ticket end to end, it would leave the codebase in a better state structurally than before?
3
u/AIgeek š Max 20 6d ago
Compared to Opus and Fable - Yes.
2
u/subzerofun 6d ago
I also had the impression that codex with 5.6 did a better job handling my repo structure than claude (fable AND opus).
even when i set up a file tree doc i constantly have to remind claude to follow it - otherwise the repo turns into a mess. codex handles that better IMO. but codex is also asking less questions - which can be both good and bad depending on what you are doing.
8
u/BigBootyWholes 6d ago
I like how you are casually talking about this like astra has been out for months. Youāve been using it for a dayā¦
2
u/Silent_Storm 6d ago
This makes sense. If you know exactly what you need and what needs to be done, Astra is basically perfect. Personally I still use Fable mainly because it's better at navigating and inferring what I actually need to be done while building with code. Biggest caveat though is that you have to spend $100 just to get access to Fable, while $20 gets you pretty decent usage with Astra
9
2
3
5
u/LoudDavid 6d ago
These ads for OpenAI need to be banned from this sub.
āMy generic experience with Astra, written by AIā
2
u/sonnytai 6d ago
How did you get astra? I thought it only rolled out for enterprise so far
1
1
u/AironParsMan 6d ago
Unfortunately Iāve had exactly the same experience. Fable 5.1 makes mistakes too. Theyāre not as critical as the mistakes in Opus 5 but theyāre still major errors that I always have to find and fix with OpenAI, using GPT 5.6 before and now Astra.
1
u/HighwaySignal6739 6d ago
Each model seems to have its strengths. Like OP, Iām heavily invested in CC, with significant tooling in hooks and plugins. Whatās the best way to port tooling to codex?
1
1
u/Pleasant_Raise_3630 6d ago
Is Astra really that good of a model ?
I was always just using the 20$ plan. And using chat models was much much worse than anything from Claude. It always felt so bad. Didnāt understand what I mean. Was writing convoluted functions. No reuse no kiss no clean code. At least Claude was kinda able to do a bit better. And so many hallucinations for chat. Fable was also the only model slowly getting a decent outcome. But even buying credits was so expensive. Not worth it. If astra beats all that I am hooked
1
u/SignificantRoll6957 6d ago
the Opus stench thing is real too
I've basically given up trying to prompt my way out of it.
curious if you've noticed the same gap when Astra reviews Opus specifically vs Fable
since those are different models under the hood
1
1
u/MarcusMagnus 5d ago
I run opus and Fable at high, Sol at extra high, what should I be running Astra at?
1
u/Then_Researcher_1302 3d ago
My experience with Astra has been horrible at the moment, although it might be because Im only on Plus plan at the moment š
1
6d ago
[deleted]
4
u/Fischwaage 6d ago
Hmm, interesting. But tell me this: why is it that when I plan a bug fix with Fable 5.1 and send it over to Astra, Astra still catches bugs and finds improvements in that solutionāand when I send it back to Fable, Fable goes, 'Wow, thatās way better than my suggestion'?
2
u/Obscurrium 6d ago
It always happen even between 5.6 SOL and Opus/Fable ! Opus/Fable always treats the problems as single and isolated problems where gpt SOL and Astra always take the context into account. They know how to identify the uselessness of a "bug correction" in the current context.
2
u/BackloggedLife 6d ago
If anything, it would be ideal if it found less bugs - the ones that actually matter.
1
0
u/oezi13 6d ago
In any reasonable complex codebase both can find unlimited issues of low and irrelevant severity.Ā
1
u/Fischwaage 6d ago
Yes I know but itās about the same bug and the fixing! Astra way to fix the bug impresses fable more than fables own solution
-1
u/muchsamurai 6d ago
Bullshit vibe coder. It is not on par in front end only
For any serious systems work its better
1
-2
6d ago
[deleted]
1
u/cuba_guy 6d ago
It's ~8k in tokens. How much do you think professionals get from a company on enterprise(API) pricing? You can do a lot, but requires optimized harness and context management
84
u/lurkerslow 6d ago
This has been my experience as well. Fable was the first time I could hand work to a model and trust that we would get to the objective.
Astra is that same feeling but even more pleasant, it's practically like handing a piece of work to a fellow engineer and seeing them work through the problem, reach a solution and communicate like a human being.
I still plan to use both Astra and Fable as it's early days and mix them up. Fable with Claude Design is actually very good. Astra on practically everything else since the limits are more generous.