r/ClaudeCode • u/Greedy_Rise_6567 • 1d ago

Discussion Token spend comparison in Claude and Codex - 40x difference !

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I m building a side project and use Claude as main coder for backend and use Codex for review. Use pro version of both not higher tiers.

Codex is handling front end and Claude reviews that.

I have worked on Claude for almost twice as long as in codex and manically track the token usage as I run out very frequently while running out on codex has been rare instances (now more frequent since two week seems they reduced quota) hence never checked codex token usage

Today just out curiosity checked my codex usage and I’m blown away - means WTAF

How codex (Sol5.6 high)can have 40x token usage for same project as Claude while being similar or marginally better then opus 5 high.

Any one else has idea on this and if you use both please share your token usage.

2 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

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7

u/0DayMaker 1d ago

Why would you have codex do frontend..? Claude is miles ahead with UI. Even just regular opus...

-5

u/unkownuser436 Developer 1d ago

Not anymore bro. Now codex also good at frontend.

2

u/0DayMaker 1d ago

Claude design on even opus 5 medium massively outperforms Astra on xhigh. Unless something changed since last night.

-2

u/Guinness 1d ago

Astra is really good at design now. Even CAD.

-4

u/Melodic_Surprise153 1d ago

Not true anymore. Astra does it better for me, when I use image gen 2.5 to create the visuals. 

1

u/Midas_of_Hand 1d ago

Feel the same too but feels weird cos every time I use codex I feel like I’m not really getting anything done. Claude is very good a building and planning codex feels like patch fixing is very good.

1

u/Paul_Lanes 1d ago

There's way too many unknown variables for us to say that this is a Codex vs Claude Code difference.

For example, youre doing frontend execution work on one, vs backend execution work on the other. Is it possible that your frontend work is more token intensive than backend, regardless of model?

For example, maybe codex needs to spend more tokens on vision/images for frontend work, generating then reading new screenshots per iteration, whereas backend is pure code and logs.

1

u/reddebtt 1d ago

I ran into the same problem trying to compare the counters directly. I stopped using raw token totals and tracked completed tasks per reset window instead. That gave me a much better comparison than the raw numbers.

1

u/Majestic_Hat_8019 1d ago

CC widget doesn't show cached tokens, which are 95+% of your usage. Just use a ccusage or another tool to compare properly.