Original Reddit post

I know a lot of people have pretty customised CC setups and can’t easily switch - I am not one of those people… the past week I’ve been playing around, just wanted to share some findings, also see what other people are finding. OpenAI - GPT5.4 Pros: Plus at $20 feels a lot like 5x Max GPT 5.4 is pretty much on par with Opus in terms of technical ability, mistakes (or lack thereof). Cons: Safety: It has refused numerous tests in cpp (simulating attack vectors such as memory overload, false headers, that kind of stuff). Refused tests in SQL (injection simulation). While I know both of those scream dodgy… I think some C++ devs will be erring towards getting LLMs to try and attack their code during dev… if an LLM can do it in dev, that something can do it in the wild. I am processing images, an area notorious for being exploited by nefarious actors. Personality: The model has a tendency to be totally correct, but equally, academic. It will suggest things that require enormous amounts of additional effort or code, but have limited real world value (kudos that it knows what they are… tbf). It is just a ***t to work with. It always thinks it’s right. It always disagrees with you. If you are a proper experienced dev, you will spend time arguing with it. Writing style… it is either ridiculously verbose, or overly succinct. By default, overly succinct. If you write a custom prompt to not be succinct, overly verbose. Versus the Claude model’s it misses that vibe of working with a reasonable and experienced mid-level dev who wants to collaborate with you. Claude has been trained with this bizarre ability to right exactly the right amount of detail, in exactly the right way. GPT does not have this. Overall: I am super picky… but it is a very very credible option. I actually now use both Opus and GPT 5.4. I like doing this… it stops me being reliant on any particular tool, and I just have my env setup for both. I’d recommend it to both professional devs and vibers (definitely to vibers, its pedantic insistence on doing what is right is really valuable, Opus seems to assume that you know what you’re asking for). Rumour has it that they’re prepping a $100 plan… and if they do… I can see myself reducing to 5x Max and GPT5.4 $100… Currently, I think what Anthrophic have told us lately (among all that they haven’t…) is “You cannot trust us” - and so as much as I like Claude, and I’d rather just have one tool… working across two products gives me the rock solid reliability I need for my workflow. While API is an option… why bother spending $4k a month on tokens if I can spend $200-400 on 2x subs? I know there are some devs that will say just use API - but tbh, I find it kind of fun being able to use anything. If the pricing changes in the future… I will re-evaluate… but see the below… some really capable models at a 10% the cost of these (which ironically… gets back down to $400 a month even on API, which suggests fat margins in some of those API prices for private SOTAs) Other options: Gemini : Unusable. The only place it works well is one-shotting a few hundred lines in their Canvas web app. Code Assist tool (VS code): Unusable. It is nearly a year old and it doesn’t feel ready for Beta yet. It is an Alpha product. Gemini CLI: I don’t know if it is the model, or the harness. But it is unusable. It is lazy, clueless, and it is massively over confident. It is also so buggy… I do not understand why they bother - just fork Opencode and put it out of its misery. AntiGravity: Just unusable. The limits (I was on Ultra at c$300 in my Geo). Hopefully this sums it up - you cannot even track your weekly usage… The “$240” feels worse than 5x Max from CC… which is in turn, similar to $20 with OAI… so the worst model by far, with by far the worst harnesses, is by far the most expensive - go figure. In short… I do not understand what Google are doing… OAI and Anthropic seem to have decided that coding is the only profitable part of LLMs right now… and Google have decided that they don’t care about it… OpenCode

GLM 5 : Decent… really decent. Haven’t tried 5.1 yet… Better than Gemini, but behind GPT5.4 and Opus. The reason I used GLM is that you can get it on Vertex which has ISO27001 and SOC2, plus Google, at least on Vertex, are pretty reliable. If you aren’t bothered by the ISO accreditations / Vertex, try out Kimi K2.5 and also Qwen3.5 397BA17B, both are decent, although not at the GPT 5.4 / Opus 4.6 level. Also, this doesn’t get much time… but OSS120b… it is so bloody good for its price:

  • I just did an entire website translation, used OSS120b. It got it to 95%… tokens cost me less than $0.50 for a dozen languages… I then ran it through Sonnet for minor corrections. Anyway, just wanted to put this out there. I know a lot of people are pretty unhappy on the 5x/20x Max plans… and I think it is worth your time getting a $20 sub from OAI to just try out Plus and GPT5.4. As for me, I’m back on 5x Max, and using $20 Plus from OAI… it is getting me through the day… I’ll re-evaluate if Anthropic start being transparent (I appreciate that they can’t fix servers overnight… or magic up some GPUs… but so far, it is their lack of honesty and transparency that has got to me). submitted by /u/Temporary-Mix8022

Originally posted by u/Temporary-Mix8022 on r/ClaudeCode