I'm afraid to ask, but because I've been very happy with Codex 5.2 CLI and I can't imagine Claude Code doing better, why is it Claude so loved around here?

Sure, I can spend $20 and figure it out, but I already pay $40/mo for two ChatGPT subs and that's enough to get me through a month.

Should I spend $20 to see for myself?

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sumedh 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Its faster and the coding models before 5.2 for me did not work at all. Claude models have been reliable since 3.5

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INTPenis 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm a late comer to AI but I started using Gemini in June 2025.

Then in december I heard from my co-workers that they were liking Claude better than any other model, and from others online, so I bought myself some Claude for xmas. And I could clearly see that it was better, right away.

That's all I know, only one model to compare with, but the difference was definitely tangible.

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mccoyb 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It codes faster and with more abandon. For good results, mix Claude Code with Codex (preferably high or xhigh reasoning) for reviews.

	▲	copperx a day ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks. The reason for my hesitancy is that I've heard that the $20 sub isn't enough for anything meaningful.

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cantalopes 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you spend only 20 on claude code you will not get far, it will lock you out after about hour of work for session usage limits

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Melonai 2 days ago | parent [-]

How much would you consider a good amount? I can't really afford more than 20$ myself, but perhaps there's a better more monetarily-optimal workflow.

	▲	k4rli 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The Claude models are among the most expensive. It's easy to spend 30 EUR+ a day when providing it with a lot of context, documentation. Ofc it can be argued that this money is worth it relative to salaries, but recently I've switched to kilocode myself after looking at different model pricings on openrouter https://openrouter.ai/models?order=pricing-high-to-low There's just no reason to throw money away. There are plenty of free (and also cheap ones) models you can use with just openrouter or kilocode (inexpensive less-shitty Cursor basically, https://kilocode.ai). With most things these free models are able to achieve great results and similarly to the expensive ones they need oversight and thorough code reviews. These days I'm barely paying anything for tokens monthly.

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dboon 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Why are you asking this? Just try it. It takes maybe fifteen minutes of your time. It’s $20. There is no possible argument against $20 or fifteen minutes if the tool has a chance of being even just 10% better. You’ve spent more time typing by the comment and I responding than it would take to…just try it…