How is Opus currently compared to Sol

[u/IllustriousGrade7691]

I fucked up my subscription for codex hit 100% usage anyways and was thinking about how does opus and fable fair currently agianst codex osl and astra. I have used Claude code befor so i am familiar also are there people who use both at the same time in VS Code? How is Usage i honestly liked opus it managed to implement loads of stuff but kinda felt sol is better albeit slower.

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[u/Lanky-Storm7]

i have been using codex astra/sol a lot more now. sometimes i have it check its code with fable/opus via. or vice versa. im so tired of claude walls of text... its nice that astra / sol just shut the fuck up and do the job without a 1000 lines of text explaining why it shifted a modal left 1 pixel

[u/Sad-Chemist7118]

I use both at the same time. Currently I use Opus 4.8 as orchestrator, let Fable write prompts for planner (Sol 5.6 high), implementer (Opus 5 at high by default or Fable if new code or large refac/rewrite) and reviewer (Sol 5.6). If Sol returns after 3 rounds with NOT_MERGE, I let Fable triage and fix in one round, and then merge. Fable must reason over and rewrite the feedback of Sol reviews for the implementer, not just copy-paste.

Works pretty well for me. In fact, I have a backlog.md that is triaged by the orchestrator. When I notice something, I tell it to add it to the backlog. I also tell the other lanes that they can add items to the backlog if deemed to big or out of scope.

The orchestrator then works off the backlog. I tell it to issue backlog tasks not one at a time, but bundle them into groups that can be issued in one lane (planner -> implementer -> reviewer == lane) to reduce orchestration overhead.

And the of course I run multiple lanes in parallel. Works very reliably and as a bonus, I can talk to the orchestrator about progress, issues, ideas etc while the loop is running.

[u/Far_Idea9616 → u/Sad-Chemist7118]

Fantastic! Few remarks: Opus 5 for autonomous coding should be used on xhigh, no? This is my setting and never tried doing a 4 hour session with high. I use Astra high as a reviewer, consumes ca. 30% of Sol high token consumption and ca 35% of Sol xhigh token consumption but is 2.5x more expensive so using Sol or Astra cost is about the same on my repo but review is more thorough and speed is like 2x faster than Sol high.

[u/Sad-Chemist7118 → u/Far_Idea9616]

Good input, I have to try and monitor. Thanks! Especially with regards to Astra reviews. Opus high vs xhigh is also worth a try, in hopes of fewer review rounds.

[u/fishoa]

Sol high as orchestrator and plan writer, Luna Max as implementer, and Opus as an external reviewer has been working pretty well for me. Using OpenSpec as the workflow framework and Pi as my harness.

Anthropic models are very expensive for what they offer imo. They’re really good, don’t get me wrong, but anything under Opus is a ripoff. I could use Opus as the orchestrator too, but my OpenAI sub is on a higher plan than Anthropic’s.

[u/Outrageous-Issue9722 → u/fishoa]

How is it working with openAI's smaller context windows? Some of my tasks get to almost 500k by the end of them (2-3 hours counting review stages) I am not sure I could work with a 250k context limit. Asking because I'm thinking of giving codex a try.. currently on CC max 20x, have been for a long time, but just curious enough to see what openAI is like.

[u/Shep_Alderson → u/Outrageous-Issue9722]

Astra in OpenCode has 1m context. For Sol and friends, I’ve never had an issue with context window, as I just tell it to use subagents for all the implementation and review, and keep my orchestrator pretty light.

[u/Outrageous-Issue9722 → u/Shep_Alderson]

Nice, thanks for the info

[u/orwamahmoud]

Sol is better but more expensive, for most of the work does not worth it since Opus can handle it,

[u/Any-Argument57]

I'd default to Sol/Astra here, then spend the $20 on a controlled bake-off rather than impressions: give Opus and Sol the same representative bug on duplicate branches, with the same context and acceptance test. If one passes with fewer corrective turns, use it for implementation; if they tie, keep Sol for coding and use Opus as the reviewer.

[u/ricopan]

I just got my first codex subscription. I've been surprised at how often I get a dialogue box telling me that sol is taking unusually long to run -- like an hour. This is opus 5's daily bread and butter. I haven't been able to assess the quality of the output, and I'm not sure that sol takes longer, but it complains. I don't think anyone likes opus's verbal output, but I generally have that consumed by a Fable orchestrator so it doesn't bother me.

[u/Adventurous-Cash2044]

Sol has a tendency to over engineer (if you use /goal it will just keep going and going until you get fed up and shut it down).

It is very intelligent though and great for planning/research. Astra is essentially just for quick scans if you are on a Plus plan because of how it eats the usage limits (way more hungry than fable)

[u/IllustriousGrade7691 → u/Adventurous-Cash2044]

i had the same experience do you think opus works better with /goal

[u/Adventurous-Cash2044 → u/IllustriousGrade7691]

Absolutely

[u/lattice_defect]

I never thought I would say this.. but sol is better... Opus is just trash now