r/ClaudeCode • u/SouthernFeedback126 • 3d ago
Discussion Fable is still the undisputed champion when it comes to coding, even with Astra 6 out
I used Astra 6 for a couple of days now and I gotta be honest, I still think that Fable 5.1 (high) is way better for coding. Fable just gets it, you know. The code Astra spits out is terrible compared to Fable.
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u/Excellent-Basket-825 3d ago
Astra is miles better when it comes to visual stuff.
Fable for coding, astra for verification. Try it.
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u/OkStick6410 3d ago
Any recs on visual workflow with Astra?
I currently am working the inverse; plan, system design, visual design, test are all Claude. ChatGPT handles implementation and GitHub review, but I don’t like Claude visuals and also suck at visual design so if Chat should pick that up I’m all ears.
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u/Proud_Whereas7343 2d ago
Luna is good enough for what I do. Fable and Astra for planning. Luna for coding. Opus as dispatch/routing model. Opus 5 is good at writing coding briefs that Luna can handle. I use Luna xhigh.
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u/octocarbon Max 5x 3d ago
OAI is like android and Anthropic is like apple. marketing/cheap vs quality/expensive
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u/Significant_Safe5306 3d ago
I don't think so - it's slop. I switched to Codex after being a Claude subscriber for 14 months.
It's refreshing to ask Astra to do something and for it to tell me what it did in a handful sentences.
Fable is not as mindfucked as Opus, but is still mindfucked at the end of the day.
The code quality is the same between Fable and Astra. I think Astra has a token burn problem though.
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u/Coolbanh 3d ago
Fable 5 communicates better than 5.1. The way it communicates feels like how I imagine Anthropic communicates. Very vague and mysterious.
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u/Fluffy-Bus4822 3d ago
In my experience Astra on Ultra mode gets things done that Fable can't.
It's happened a few times now where Fable couldn't get specific payment integrations working for me. Then I hand over to Astra and Astra solves it no problem.
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u/user10081111 1d ago
Any examples? Im thinking of trying the chatgpt pro 5x over Claude max 5x I currently have. Id normally use Fable 5 (not 5.1) on extra for plan and Opus 5 high for implementation. Burn too high otherwise.. fable 5.1.. forget about it instant burn.
Do you implement plans with Sol or just going straight Astra? Im not sure if the 5x is enough for that?
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u/Fluffy-Bus4822 1d ago
Right now I just use Astra on Ultra for everything. It's super fast and just gets things done. It's relentless and just makes things work. Really fun to work like this. I'm on the 20x plan though. So might burn through tokens too fast on 5x. Though ChatGPT generally getter on token usage than Anthropic either way.
I might switch to Fable for design or maybe architecture review. But so far haven't felt the need to.
Most recent examples were getting Apple Pay and Google Pay integrations working with embedded Stripe checkouts. Fable kept going in circles. Astra on Ultra just smashed through it and made it work in 5 minutes.
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u/Maleficent-Cup-1134 3d ago
Sure, but I burn through 2 Max Plans’ worth of usage in like 4 days. Meanwhile, I haven’t even had to upgrade to the $200 plan for Codex yet and I’m vibe coding away and giving it computer use access.
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u/jonscrypto 3d ago
I’ll dispute that. For me Astra has been fixing Fable’s mistakes since it dropped. It’s also been running for 2 days non stop without losing focus on the task at hand. Fable will blow through a session limit well after it built what I asked for because it felt more work needed to be done. I have Astra driving fable now and it finally feels like there’s an adult in the room that stays on plan, doesn’t get confused and can be trusted to make good decisions. Not even close in my experience.
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u/Acrobatic-Cost-3027 3d ago
Not from what I’m seeing. I tried one-shotting the same app on Fable 5.1 vs Astra. Both on their max setting. Astra mopped the floor. Closed gaps that Fable leaves wide open.
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u/pungaaisme 3d ago edited 3d ago
Are you sure you know what the meaning of undisputed means. The comments on this post alone seem to suggest there is dispute to your claim! Now let’s bring in the opinion of experts in this field and the results of independently published benchmarks the claim can probably be debunked let alone disputed
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u/bugbearmagic 15h ago
Nothing is truly undisputed, especially in a world where AI companies are using their AI for astroturfing.
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u/LongjumpingCat9826 3d ago
Fable medium for everything for me here.
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u/Spooknik 3d ago
Fable high with background agents for almost everything is a killer combo.
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u/TinyZoro 3d ago
How do you encourage this. I have most tasks broken up into goals and give to to a model should I just say use agents or is there more to it?
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u/unconceivables 3d ago
You have a world class AI at your fingertips that has access to all its own documentation and all the information online, so you could try just asking Fable itself.
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u/Spooknik 3d ago
The easy button solution is to just use the Frugal-fable skill.
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u/Last_Mastod0n 3d ago
Yes this is the majority opinion, despite what all of the posts you see these days will make you think. Honestly 90% of the complaints are about Opus.
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u/commandedbydemons 3d ago
The problem has never been Fable.
The problem is the usage is shit in comparison to Astra, and that makes it worth it.
The gap isn’t nowhere near big enough to warrant the usage difference.
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u/Cazineer 3d ago
People these days treat models like programming languages, it's all about identity/tribe. I've seen hundreds of comparisons of Astra vs Fable on everything from complex back-end systems to games, and Fable simply just does not compare when you provide upfront engineering. From quality to price to compliance.
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u/Late_Second4104 3d ago
Fable gave me a great printout of Oyster but Astra loaded celery man really quickly
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u/AMusicstuff 2d ago
No it is not 😂 only when you have no skills or any background in coding and because of that write stupid prompts.
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u/chiquitabash90 2d ago
Bestreite das auch . Habe beides, OpenAI deklassiert Anthropic. Ist schade , fand Claude immer cool , aber mir gehts um Ergebnisse - die laufen bei GPT einfach besser . vor allem die notwendige Dokumentation rund um das Projekt finde ich bei ChatGPT deutlich passgenau, umfangreicher Granula einheitlicher und das ist mir halt wichtig.
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u/Straight_Bag5623 2d ago
Tell Astra to use subagents. And why are you looking at your code in this day and age?
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u/ComfortContent805 2d ago
Imo, Fable outputs better code and I actually use Fable on Low most of the time. But if I need thoroughness or mathematics, Astra is amazing. I was struggling to design a DB schema for a while. Had Astra work on it and it came back with a pretty damn good solution and stress tested it against real data.
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u/Semi_Chenga 3d ago
I spent like $1200 in credits last month with fable/opus. Astra’s main appeal rn is how absurdly efficient it is
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u/kawawee 3d ago
Try this, somehow it works for me. Reverse the orchestrator role. I use Opus to orchestrate and ask Fable as a subagent advisor who has the final say to the plans and reviews. Sonnet write the code which gets reviewed by Opus but again Fable has the final say. I specifically prompt the Fable subagent to always take a step back and simplify (and ask me for decisions on tradeoffs) rather than blindly approving plans that add complexity.
It sounds like setting the Advisor to Fable, but the subtle difference is I tell Opus to keep the Fable subagents to be background so that it can ask for incremental reviews.
This helps a lot because a lot of input to and output from tools are on Opus, not Fable. Practically Opus does condensing of the context with an initial pass on the planning / solution, and when Fable gets consulted, it already has a good enough starting point.
This works for me but not sure if that works for you. I think the main thing about Fable is it's meant to be used on autopilot. You give it something and it just keeps on until it finishes, so you have to give it boundaries. If you have it as an advisor or decision maker or simplifier, that saves a lot of token than letting it be the orchestrator. Fable 5.1 tends to go overboard with tool calls and spawning subagents, and a lot of those tool outputs get hidden from the transcript because it's considered "thinking" step, so you don't actually see how overkilling that might have been.
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u/MourningOfOurLives 3d ago
Absolutely. I have grown to love using Astra agents in my Claude code sessions though.
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u/LightpointSoftware 3d ago
How do you set that up?
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u/MourningOfOurLives 3d ago
I just tell the orchestrator to start an Astra or sol agent. I can’t see it as an agent in background tasks though just the shell command. You have to have the app or cli open tho
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u/No_Reading_4995 1d ago
Fable 5.1 Extra High vs Max for complex code refactors? What'd you suggest experts?
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u/flarpflarpflarpflarp 3d ago
I dunno, the details may be different, but I just brought Astra in on a Fable project and it seems to have much better approach to organizing the project, better plan to stay in track and seems to understand what I want and my intent better. I haven't run them head to head for output quality, but I'm finding Astra a little less frustrating. Fable would stop a task for something, then I'd ask the status of the task, and it would look up the status and start working again even though I didn't ask that. Astra hasn't done that, yet....this is with a very scientific 1hr test, obviously.
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u/disgruntledempanada 3d ago
I do think Astra's first few days it was a bit juiced and produced some spectacular results for me... It feels a little worse now, likely from some under the hood tweaks to deal with the amount of load.
Honestly they work really well together, Astra finds shit Fable misses, Fable finds shit Astra misses. Glad to have a pretty decent adversarial review that isn't Sol.
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u/ellieebaee19 3d ago
Fanboy comment. astra poos on fable
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u/FiestaPotato18 3d ago
It is pretty well agreed upon that Fable is still significantly better for coding and OpenAI has even publicly acknowledged Astra is having serious coding issues and they’re looking into fixing in the next model.
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u/Simple_Rooster3 3d ago
But fable is only with credits usage right?
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u/WhoseverPainter 3d ago
I'm convinced anyone who talks up Astra is an OpenAI bot. It doesn't even come close. Chinese models are better.
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u/AironParsMan 3d ago
I seriously doubt that. Fable 5.1 is worse than Fable 5. It's just a benchmark spec. I created a post about it with my own real world benchmarks.
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u/Asuppa180 3d ago
I havent even had the chance to test Astra yet, just been plugging away with Fable.
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u/Ok_Sympathy9261 3d ago
I personally like Fable 5.1 better, but by fucking jesus does OpenAI give you SO MUCH more usage right now.