GPT 5.4 is the surly physics PhD post-doc who slowly and angrily sits in a basement to write brilliant, undocumented, uncommented code that encapsulates a breakthrough algorithm.

Opus 4.6 is the L5 new hire SWE keen to prove their chops and quickly turn out totally reasonable code with putatively defensible reasons for doing it that way (that are sometimes tragically wrong) and then catch an after-work yoga class with you.

Thanks for confirming my impressions, it's been like 4 months now that I've arrived at the same conclusions. GPT models are just better at any kind of low-level work: reverse engineering including understanding what the decompiled code/assembly does, renaming that decompiled code (functions/types), any kind of C/C++, way more reliable security research (Opus will find way more, but most will turn out to be false positives). I've had GPT create non-trivial custom decompilers for me for binaries built with specific compilers (it's a much simpler task than what IDA Pro/Ghidra are doing but still complex), and modify existing Java decompilers.

Regarding speed, I don't use xhigh that often, and surprisingly for me GPT 5.4 high is faster than Claude 4.6 Opus high (unless you enable fast mode for Opus).

Of course I still use Opus for frontend, for some small scripts, and for criticizing GPT's code style, especially in Python (getattr).

+1 to this, I've found GPT/Codex models consistently stronger in engineering tasks (such as debugging complex, cross-systems issues, concurrency problems, etc).

I use both OpenAI and Anthropic models, though for different purposes, what surprises me is how underrated GPT still feels (or, alternatively, how overhyped Anthropic models can be) given how capable it is in these scenarios. There also seems to be relatively little recognition of this in the broader community (like your recent YouTube video). My guess is that demand skews toward general codegen rather than the kind of deep debugging and systems work where these differences really show.

What I like most about gpt coding models is how predictable of a lever that thinking effort is.

Xhigh will gather all the necessary context. low gathers the minimum necessary context.

That doesn’t work as well with me for Opus. Even at max effort it’ll overlook files necessary to understanding implementations. It’s really annoying when you point that out and you get hit with an”you’re absolutely right”.

Codex isn’t the greatest one shot horse in the race but, once you figure out how to harness it, it’s hard to go back to other models.

1000%. I have been running claude's work through codex for about a week now and it's insane the number of mistakes it catches. Not really sure why I've been doing this, just interesting to watch I guess.

Not to mention a billion times more usage than you get with claude, dollar for dollar.

GPT5.4 with any effort level is scary when you combine it with tricks like symbolic recursion. I actually had to reduce the effort level to get the model to stop trying to one shot everything. I struggled to come up with BS test cases it couldn't dunk in some clever way. Turning down the reasoning effort made it explore the space better.

Same for me, cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47680123

The $100/mo giving access to GPT Pro (with reduced usage) is a nice counter to the just teased Claude Mythos. But GPT 5.4 xhigh being able to perform that kind of low-level reconstruction task is very impressive already.

I completely agree with you on both the technical and ethical reasoning.

Thank you for speaking out. I think it's important that reputable engineers like you do so. The Claude gang gaslighting is unhinged right now. It would be none of my concern but I have to deal with it in the real world - my customers are susceptible to these memes. I'm sure others have to deal with similar IRL consequences, too.

What has the tech industry ever resisted on moral or reputational grounds?

What's with the holier-than-thou attitude? Why do you think you're better than someone using chatgpt?

I assume in any sort of thread on a topic like this there is going to be inorganic activity. These companies are all fighting rather hard to try to gain marketshare, potentially worth $trillions, with a product fully capable of producing endless reasonably compelling content to populate an account, a website, or any other basic proof of identity one might ever want.

It's probably never been the case that plurality of views meant anything since online is a bubble to begin with, filtered by endless biases wherever we happen to be reading, making it an even more fringe bubble, but the advent of AI has pushed it all over the edge to the point that perceived pluralities are just completely and utterly meaningless. Somewhat depressing for a one who enjoys online chat as a pasttime, but it's the reality of the world now.

Same for me. I'm on $20 plan for both and I use them both interchangeably. Similar "intelligence" imo. Just different way of doing things, that's all. But Claude is getting worse in terms of token usage so I've cancelled my plan last month.

Yeah it's probably a bit better overall. 5.4 is a month newer than Opus 4.6

My guess is that 5.5 will come out soon and be significantly better so you'd want to be using Codex then, but then when Opus 5 comes out probably back to claude code

Also 5.4 has fast mode, and higher usage limits since it's cheaper

Do you mind elaborating on your experience here?

Just curious as I've often heard that Claude was superior for planning/architecture work while ChatGPT was superior for actual implementation and finding bugs.

That is not the "only" thing: You get access to GPT-5.4 pro.

Notably, up until now Pro had 6x usage of Plus. So the title is only slightly misleading.

On the other hand, the benchmark of Plus usage seems to be to be all over the place, so it’s difficult to say now how does the usage compare to the old Pro.

You’re right. I missed the “From $100”. Edited title.

Oh. Yikes.

I think you currently can't use pro inside codex, or can you?

I use both GH Copilot as well as CC extensively and it does seem more economical, though I wonder how long this will last as I imagine Github has also been subsidizing LLM usage extensively.

FWIW it feels like GH Copilot is a cheaper version of OpenRouter but with trade-offs like being locked into VSCode and the Microsoft ecosystem overall. I already use VSCode though and otherwise I don't see much downside to using GH Copilot outside of that.

OT:

In general I view VS Code and VS.NET Community + SQL Server free universe as the most effective option :) I think these products are great actually.

I tried Claude Code for a week straight recently to see what all the hype was about and while it pumped out a bunch of reasonable looking code and features I ended up feeling completely disconnected from my codebase and uncomfortable.

Cancelled the plan I had with them and happily went back to just coding like normal in VSCode with occasional dips into Copilot when a need arose or for rubber ducking and planning. Feels much better as I'm in full control and not trusting the magic black box to get it right or getting fatigue from reading thousands of lines of generated code.

Anyone who says they're able to review thousands of lines effectively that Claude might slop out in a day are lying to themselves.

> The era of subsidization is over

Of course it is. Returns are diminishing, AGI isn't happening with current techniques but it is good enough to sell, so it's time to monetize. I just got an email from OpenAI as well about ads in their free tier (I signed up once out of curiosity).

Not over yet. More hikes will come. It will reach $1000.

Pro used to be $200.

What’s the difference between the two Pro plans?

Both Pro plans include the same core capabilities. The main difference is usage allowance: Pro $100 unlocks 5x higher usage than Plus (and 10x Codex usage vs. Plus for a limited time), while Pro $200 unlocks 20x usage than Plus.

From their faq

5x more usage than in Plus is 100$

20x more usage than in Plus is 200$

I see this when I try to upgrade my Plus subscription.

If you pay 200 you get 20x

I assume it means 5x if they get to choose. They're the ones enforcing the limits.

Suppose you enter a casino and the owner welcomes you in and sees that you are a frequent loyal s̶p̶e̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ customer (with the amount of tokens you are spending a month) with an existing membership.

With this new VIP membership that comes with 5x or 20x usage, if you spend $100 you get 5x. $200 you get 20x and you get to spin the wheel and use the slot machines unlimited times even at peak hours more than most without any restrictions, 24/7, no waiting for hours with priority.

So spend more to get more abundance and more simultaneous spins at the wheel.

Except if you're trying to abuse the slot machines themselves or sharing or reselling your membership to other customers who want a spin at the roulette wheel; but were previously banned. [0]

[0] https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9793128-about-chatgpt-pr...

Exactly! :)

Yes, it's 5x more usage than Plus, and with the current promotions you actually get 10x more usage than Plus on the $100 plan until May 31st.

Same for the $200 plan, it's still 2x its normal usage until that date.

$20 or $200 plan, now we have a middle plan.

are your prompts that important that you would not use SOTA models just to protect them?

For me, they are just a means to an end and disposable.

The missing piece isn't smarter models, it's making them usable for normal people. OpenClaw proved there's massive demand for AI agents but the setup and maintenance is brutal. We built Atmita (https://atmita.com) from scratch, not based on OpenClaw, cloud-native so there's nothing to install. It can hit any REST API directly, integrates with 800+ services out of the box, has a built-in browser, runs scheduled tasks in the background, and has built-in approval controls. All through a chat interface anyone can use.

This is kind of the goldilocks zone for LLMs right now.

I wouldn't mistake this for any kind of capability plateau. There is a massive push towards making transformers the engine of humanoid (and other kinds of) robotics, we just haven't reached the hype moment for those yet.

I have heard a CTO had a major success building a side project over a weekend.

I heard it’ll take about a year. Timers are a hard problem to solve.

> the quality differential versus the competitor is night and day.

This myth about the inferiority of ChatGPT and Codex is becoming a meme.

I have active subscriptions to both. I am throwing at Codex all kinds of data engineering, web development and machine learning problems, have been working on non-tech tasks in the "Karpathy Obsidian Wiki" [1] style before he posted about it.

Not only does Codex crush Claude on cost, it's also significantly better at adherence and overall quality. Claude is there on my Mac, gathering dust, to the point I am thinking of not renewing the sub.

There are plenty of fellow HNers here who feel the same from what I read in the flamewars. I suspect none of us really has a horse in this race and many are half-competent (in other threads, they mention they do things like embedded programming, distributed DL systems, etc.)

I'm starting to suspect a vast majority of people pushing the narrative that Claude is vastly better haven't even tried the 5.3 / 5.4 models and are doing it out of sheer tribalism.

[1] https://gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf555914893e9891c11519...

Disagree. I use codex extensively. It just works so well with vscode and python. Claude with ridiculous limits - thanks no. For some even xAI is good fit.

This take is out-of-date by months (which is an eternity in this space). Codex today has caught up and is very much on par with CC.

I prefer and use 5.4 over Opus, it's simply better, faster, and doesn't glaze me like Claude models want to do for some reason.