Comment by AstroBen
2 days ago
give codex a try for $20. You get a lot out of the base subscription. Opus will burn through the $20 sub in an hour
The latest models are all really good at writing code. Which is better is just vibes and personal preference at this point IMO
The agent harness of claude code / opencode / codex is what really makes the difference these days
Oh nice, so Claude/OpenAI isn't as important as (Claude)Code/Codex/OpenCode these days? How is opencode in comparison, the idea of zen does seem quite nice (a lot of flexibility to experiment with different models), though it does seem like a bit more config and work upfront than CC or codex
I'd say OpenCode > Codex > Claude Code in terms of the TUI interface UX. OpenCode feels a lot nicer to use. I haven't noticed a code quality difference, only a difference in the UX
I'm not sure about Zen, but OpenAI seems to be giving me $20 / week worth of tokens within the $20/month
Also for absolutely free models, MiniMax M2.1 has been impressive and useful to me (free through OpenCode). Don't judge the state of the art through the lens of that, though
Bit on an update on Zen, it looks like Anthropic have blocked Claude usage outside of Claude Code, so if I did want to use Opus, it'd have to be through that. They might reverse it or OpenCode might find a way round it, but overall I'd say at this point its safest to assume, if you're starting fresh with this, you go with one or the other.
Still not sure which one I'll go with, though I can't say I feel too keen to get into Claude after that