Comment by sali0
2 months ago
I've found myself having brand loyalty to Claude. I don't really trust any of the other models with coding, the only one I even let close to my work is Claude. And this is after trying most of them. Looking forward to trying 4.
Gemini is _very_ good at architecture level thinking and implementation.
I tend to find that I use Gemini for the first pass, then switch to Claude for the actual line-by-line details.
Claude is also far superior at writing specs than Gemini.
Much like others, this is my stack (or o1-pro instead of Gemini 2.5 Pro). This is a big reason why I use aider for large projects. It allows me to effortlessly combine architecture models and code writing models.
I know in Cursor and others I can just switch models between chats, but it doesn't feel intentional the way aider does. You chat in architecture mode, then execute in code mode.
I also use Aider (lately, always with 3.7-sonnet) and really enjoy it, but over the past couple of weeks, the /architect feature has been pretty weird. It previously would give me points (e.g. 1. First do this, 2. Then this) and, well, an architecture. Now it seems to start spitting out code like crazy, and sometimes it even makes commits. Or it thinks it has made commits, but hasn't. Have you experienced anything like this? What am I doing wrong?
Cline also allows you to have separate model configuration for "Plan" mode and "Act" mode.
could you describe a bit how does this work? I haven't had much luck with AI so far, but I'm willing to try.
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I have been very brand loyal to claude also but the new gemini model is amazing and I have been using it exclusively for all of my coding for the last week.
I am excited to try out this new model. I actually want to stay brand loyal to antropic because I like the people and the values they express.
Yah Claude tends to output 1200+ line architectural specification documents while Gemini tends to output ~600 line. (I just had to write 100+ architectural spec documents for 100+ different apps)
Not sure why Claude is more thorough and complete than the other models, but it's my go-to model for large projects.
The OpenAI model outputs are always the smallest - 500 lines or so. Not very good at larger projects, but perfectly fine for small fixes.
I'd interested to hear more about your workflow. I use Gemini for discussing the codebase, making ADR entries based on discussion, ticket generation, documenting the code like module descriptions and use cases+examples, and coming up with detailed plans for implementation that cursor with sonnet can implement. Do you have any particular formats, guidelines or prompts? I don't love my workflow. I try to keep everything in notion but it's becoming a pain. I'm pretty new to documentation and proper planning, but I feel like it's more important now to get the best use out of the llms. Any tips appreciated!
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> I just had to write 100+ architectural spec documents for 100+ different apps
… whaaaaat?
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What's your prompt look like for creating spec documents?
Who's reading these docs?
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This is exactly my approach. Use Gemini to come up with analysis and a plan, Claude to implement.
This matches with my experience as well.
Same. And I JUST tried their GitHub Action agentic thing yesterday (wrote about it here[0]), and it honestly didn't perform very well. I should try it again with Claude 4 and see if there are any differences. Should be an easy test
[0] https://mattsayar.com/personalized-software-really-is-coming...
It would be pretty funny if your "not today. Maybe tomorrow" proposition actually did happen the next day.
It literally almost did!
Did you try it? Were the results any better?
The new Gemini models are very good too.
As the poet wrote:
I prefer MapQuest
that's a good one, too
Google Maps is the best
true that
double true!
Gemini 2.5 Pro replaced Claude 3.7 for me after using nothing but claude for a very long time. It's really fast, and really accurate. I can't wait to try Claude 4, it's always been the most "human" model in my opinion.
Idk I found Gemini 2.5 Breaking code style too often and introducing unneeded complexity on the top of leaving unfinished functions.
I'm slutty. I tend to use all four at once: Claude, Grok, Gemini and OpenAI.
They keep leap-frogging each other. My preference has been the output from Gemini these last few weeks. Going to check out Claude now.
Something I’ve found true of Claude, but not other models, is that when the benchmarks are better, the real world performance is better. This makes me trust them a lot more and keeps me coming back.
I also recommend trying out Gemini, I'm really impressed by the latest 2.5. Let's see if Claude 4 makes me switch back.
What's the best way to use gemini? I'm currently pretty happy / impressed with claude code via the CLI, its the best AI coding tool I've tried so far
I use it via Aider, with Gemini being the architect and Claude the editor.
I think "Kagi Code" or whatever it's called is using Claude
I wouldn't go as far, but I actually have some loyalty to Claude as well. Don't even know why, as I think the differences are marginal.
It’s possible to get to know the quirks of these models and intuit what will and won’t work, and how to overcome those limitations. It’s also possible to just get to know, like, and trust their voice. I’m certain that brand awareness is also a factor for me in preferring Claude over ChatGPT etc
I think it really depends on how you use it. Are you using an agent with it, or the chat directly?
I've been pretty disappointed with Cursor and all the supported models. Sometimes it can be pretty good and convenient, because it's right there in the editor, but it can also get stuck on very dumb stuff and re-trying the same strategies over and over again
I've had really good experiences with o4-high-mini directly on the chat. It's annoying going back and forth copying/pasting code between editor and the browser, but it also keeps me more in control about the actions and the context
Would really like to know more about your experience
i was the same, but then slowly converted to Gemini. Still not sure how that happened tbh
I've been initially fascinated by Claude, but then I found myself drawn to Deepseek. My use case is different though, I want someone to talk to.
I also use DeepSeek R1 as a daily driver. Combined with Qwen3 when I need better tool usage.
Now that both Google and Claude are out, I expect to see DeepSeek R2 released very soon. It would be funny to watch an actual open source model getting close to the commercial competition.
Have you compared R1 with V3-0324?
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A nice thing about Deepseek is that it is so cheap to run. It's nice being able to explore conversational trees without getting a $12 bill at the end of it.