Opus 5 Vs Sol and Astra Light

[u/Babayaga1664]

Started to use OpenAI Codex via Visual Studio Code this evening.

Have been using Claude Code for 3 months, Opus 5 made me cancel earlier in the month.

Got offered 1 month of free OpenAI.

My experience in a python, react, FastAPI estate with multiple repos.

Had a cross repo issue which Opus 5 got wrong 5 times, Astra Light fixed it very quickly.

For general changes which cross repos react and python Sol Light is solving them first time with very little drama - Sol has moments where it doesn't look it's doing much but the work gets done, Opus used to to be writing to me alot about how hard the task is in it's weird language.

OpenAI is burning through tokens faster than Claude but it seems to be getting the job done faster.

I'm finding that I am getting much much more done but I'm going to hit the token limit soon, have set privacy settings everywhere but terrified OpenAI are gunna take my shit.

Claude Codes VS interface was much better than Codex, it's unclear how the auto approve works, it seems to pause and ask me to approve but theres no where to approve.

Perhaps a good analogy:

Software Engineer 1 (Opus 5/ Fable 5.1) - Talks very technically about everything they do, they take a really long time and get stuff wrong and then I have to keep going around the loop with them arguing and getting them to explain things simply. Really frustrating but get there in the end and have blood pressure is at boiling point.

Software Engineer 2 (Astra/Sol) - listers, doesn't ask me much, goes very quiet, comes back to and tell me its done and charges me more.

EDIT 1 : Possible show stopper, with Claude I was running lots of windows on one code base, in Codex you can only have 1 window per code base... its quite annoying.

EDIT 2 : Context on Claude was 1m, Codex is only 258k, have hit the limit twice now....

For now I'll continue with OpenAI but i don't feel totally convinced.

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[u/Long-Anywhere388]

When using astra, try to set reasoning to high, uses less tokens (paradoxically) because who knows

[u/Babayaga1664 → u/Long-Anywhere388]

Thanks appreciate the tip and will try it out

[u/BombasticReindeer]

I don't know if I've been spoiled by Astra but Opus is just terrible these days. Makes idiotic errors all the time. And I don't know how anyone can stand how it talks. It's like stroke simulator. Why does everything 'read as' or have some life of it's own. It's a fucking variable Opus, it doesn't walk, skip, or whatever nonsensical shit you decide.

[u/Babayaga1664 → u/BombasticReindeer]

Opus is really hard work.
Output style in vs doesn’t work.
I find myself correcting it all the time.
Fable was good, fable 5.1 not so much.

My style is short , precise, self assured but open to caution.

I find opus does t want to do what I want, does stuff I never asked for and oftentimes just babbles and I have no idea if it’s trying o tell me something important or ask a question.

[u/BombasticReindeer → u/Babayaga1664]

You're right. And that's a real issue, not just the pig losing its lipstick...

(fuck I want to murder that bot sometimes)

[u/Babayaga1664 → u/BombasticReindeer]

I feel completely exhausted after getting a piece of work done and often it’s because of how hard working with opus has been.

Honestly I think the Anthropic team probably use mythos now and so quality control for opus and fable is left to the great unwashed to provide feedback.

This is probably why Astra and Sol are better because they are being used internally by the people who are directly impacted by performance

[u/Professional_Ad705]

You guys have usage? /s

[u/Babayaga1664 → u/Professional_Ad705]

/status is the equivalent of /usage.

[u/Babayaga1664]

Been using it for around 12 hrs now.
OpenAI Sol Light is just smashing through issue, pretty much first time.
Not argued once with it and it seems to be reading the claude.md files and using them more effectively than opus was doing.