For anyone who uses both or has switched in either direction: I’m curious about how well the Codex models follow instructions, quality of reasoning and UX compared to Claude Code. I’m aware of code quality opinions. I hadn’t even bothered installing Codex until I rammed through my Max 20x 5h cap the other day (first time). The experience in Codex was… different than I expected. I generally can’t stand ChatGPT but I was absolutely blown away by how well Codex immediately followed my instructions in a project tailored for Claude Code . The project has some complex layers and context files - almost an agentic OS of sorts - and I’ve resorted to system prompt hacking and hooks to try to force Claude to follow instructions and conventions, even at 40K context. Codex just… did what the directives told it to do. And it did it with gusto, almost anxiously. I was expecting the opposite as I’ve come to see ChatGPT as inferior to Opus especially and I’m thinking that may have been naive. To be fair, Codex on my business $30/month plan eats usage way faster than Claude Code on Max, even with the ongoing issues. It feels more like here’s a “few bundled prompts as a taster” rather than anything useful. Apparently their Pro plan isn’t actually much better for Codex, so the API would be a must it seems. Has anyone used both extensively? How have you found compliance? What’s the story like using CC Max versus Codex + API billing? submitted by /u/Aphova
Originally posted by u/Aphova on r/ClaudeCode