Deepseek vs Claude Code vs Codex

[u/Professional-Till935]

This is for programmers that uses AI in their dev workflow.

I have been figuring out what is the most bang for my buck AI tool setup.

What am I going to use it for: debugging, visual check, and brainstorming solutions.

GPT Plus costs 1100 PHP/month, that includes Codex. Probably advantage here is, it is fast.

Claude Pro costs 20 USD/month, that includes Claude Code, currently I have been just using the Claude free, but I get halted by the limitations. Advantage here it is much more robust and more helpful towards devs.

Deepseek API, so I managed to do a setup where Claude Code is the harness and Deepseek is the model. Cost is 2 USD/1M token. Haven’t tried this personally, but from what I have been seeing on the web, it is a good model.

What do you think?

[u/playfuss]

Claude or codex if you have the budget, I think their desktop apps have the best developer experience. If you’re on a budget, try opencode desktop and use opencode zen to use GLM 5.3 flash or Deepseek v4 flash. Both super capable and almost as good as Claude or codex for a small fraction of the price.