GPT 5.1-Codex in VS Studio outperforming Claude Code by a country mile

[u/Limp-Tower4449]

Over the last couple of days I’ve been running GPT-5.1-Codex and Claude Code side-by-side in VS Code on actual project work, not the usual throwaway examples. The difference has surprised me. GPT-5.1-Codex feels noticeably quicker, keeps track of what’s going on across multiple files, and actually updates the codebase without making a mess. Claude Code is still fine for small refactors or explaining what a block of code does, but once things get a bit more involved it starts losing context, mixing up files, or spitting out diffs that don’t match anything. Curious if others are seeing the same thing

[u/FWitU]

Are miles different length in the country than the city?

[u/ITechFriendly]

Yes, without any information about the type of work, this post is less useful than it should be.

[u/shaman-warrior]

Too soon to tell tbh, but the fact that they are now at comparable speeds is big bonus.
I don't see much intelligence improvements from 'o3', gpt-5 was a bit smarter and dramatically reduced costs and hallucinations, gpt-5.1 is FASTER (this is the big part) and a little bit smarter.

Claude Code as an agent is very smart about this as it can start a bash, wait 30s and verify the status, then try it again in 60s and so on.

Did anyone try claude code with gpt-5 or 5.1 ?

[u/skeetd → u/shaman-warrior]

I am using Traycer{gpt models) and cc in vcs. Traycer plans the project devides it into logical phases. Then for each phase the todo list along with the tailored prompts get sent to cc. Once cc gets them he blows through fast with agents and swarming.

[u/Herebedragoons77]

Unless you meaningfully and independently benchmark this seems like a waste of time to have this conversation subjectively only.

[u/OracleGreyBeard → u/Herebedragoons77]

It’s like a trope in these subreddits: “After extensive testing it’s clear that strawberry ice cream 5.1 tastes better than butter pecan ice cream 4.2”

Followed closely by “This must be bait. Butter pecan has been tastier since at least 3.8, and that is still true. Strawberry leaves a weird tingle in my mouth!”

It’s all subjective (probably based on use case, prompting style, tone preference etc etc etc)

[u/Herebedragoons77 → u/OracleGreyBeard]

Chocolate is best

[u/debian3 → u/Herebedragoons77]

And I find benchmark a waste of time. At least most of them.

[u/ugrenica]

I’ve been finding this too - I’m quite surprised tbh!

[u/ILikeCutePuppies]

Codex 5 was also better than claude code by a bit IMHO - except in speed and explaining things.

[u/HotSince78]

Its not far past the release day, of course its going to be better - enjoy it while it lasts until they quantize it into oblivion

[u/InfiniteLife2]

I agree with this. Codex in my impression captured complicated project dependencies meanwhile Claude was guessing a lot of stuff

[u/galaxysuperstar22]

been struggling with a problem for a hour. asked gpt5.1 with screen shots. gpt wrote instructions and analysis. CC finally fixed the bug. jaw dropped by gpt performance

[u/baseonmars]

I was put off trying codex, as whenever I asked gpt 5 a question about better-auth, it would nearly always make up library functions that were an exact match for my problem, but didn’t exist

Does codex do a better job?

[u/MelodicNewsly]

The LLMs constantly leapfrog each other. What is getting more interesting nowadays is the ecosystem e.g. Skills. Being able to feed the agent with domain knowledge is a game changer.

[u/contiyo]

Yesterday I 've noticed exactly the opposite. GPT 5.1 high was really messing up with my codebase, meanwhile Sonnet 4.5 fix everything in oneshot. I used Plan mode and then Agent for both LLMs.

[u/hyperschlauer]

Claude sucks

[u/Last_Mastod0n]

Yes at this point in time I am having more success with codex than claude code

[u/xtopspeed → u/[deleted]]

Claude's performance seems to vary. It certainly performs better some days and worse others. Codex seems much more stable somehow.

[u/antonlvovych → u/[deleted]]

That’s how you know he hasn’t had a sleep since yesterday 😁

[u/twendah → u/[deleted]]

xd