At my day job, we use API Claude code, the thing is magic - it does tasks flawlessly, never stops , produces usually correct answers the first time even on a proprietary codebase. Productivity at work is insane
Then I come home and use my personal Claude max for my compiler related work, it has become horrible to use since last couple of months, it almost feels like an inferior product, it'll stall tasks, it won't reason beyond the narrow immediate problem. I thought maybe I'm not using it correctly, i created mandatory skills for it to follow, pre and post commit hooks to run reviews and test, i created parallel agent mechanisms to improve exploration of the codebase, I bounced off plans between codex and claude(asked claude to plan, codex to critique and execute). I put explicit instructions in Claude . md to never ignore the skills...and nothing. Zero difference. Sure it solves a hard big once in a while but the cost of keeping all the context in my head alone was not worth it. Switching over to API usage is not feasible now because of how insanely expensive the cost is(I mean great that I'm building an enterprise level software while paying pennies for it but this past year has been an opportunity of a lifetime)
Then I switched over entirely to Codex once Gpt-5.5 dropped, cancelled my claude max subscription for the second time . Codex with gpt-5.5 seems closer to opus 4.6 when it came out. It follows all my skills and commit hooks. The lack of reasoning output hurts a bit but I can alleviate some of that with manual back and forth planning.
I have even tried couple of Ralph loops with /goal mode and yes it works. I don't know how long Codex will continue to be good but by that time I hope to have a local model which is as good running locally-man can hope 😅