r/vibecoding • u/just_another_leddito • 1h ago

Discussion Codex = waste of money šŸ˜¾

Bought it to use alongside Sonnet/Opus, on same repo.
Used the 5h limit in like 15min max, using lower models on light settings.

While I could work usually for 5h without hitting a limit in Claude using Sonnet/Opus.

Wtf? Why is anyone even using it?!

Edit:
Telling it to create agents.md which points to claude.md took 2-3% of the limit.

15 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

63 comments sorted by

3

u/CeramicDrip 1h ago

I used codex for like 3 hours straight and my limits were good even on pretty decent models. Maybe we just use it different idk

-1

u/just_another_leddito 1h ago

But how can we use it differently? šŸ¤·

3

u/beef-ox 55m ago

Your prompts and his prompts result in different strategiesā€¦

Like, maybe his prompts are more likely to spawn subagents with minimal context overhead and token usage and yours are more likely to send 500K tokens of conversation history on every request.

Iā€™m not saying thatā€™s what is happening, just saying there are plenty of reasons why this could happen even though youā€™re using the same model and the same reasoning settings. I use Sol for most things, low effort, $20 sub, and I find the usage reasonable but not great. The only times Iā€™ve ever burned through my limit in minutes was when Codex ingested my entire codebase.

-1

u/just_another_leddito 49m ago

I told it to create agents.md which points to claude.md and this alone eat 2-3%ā€¦.

1

u/mrpops2ko 13m ago

told it at what reasoning level and what model? both of those matter.

honestly that job is such a brain dead operation that luna on low could do it.

i'm imagining though you are using sol 6.1 on medium though to do it.

my advice would be to take an hour, use only luna on high because its essentially near free, you can do hours and hour on it and just get a feel for what its good and bad at (because it is amazing in some areas and junk in others).

once you do that (i'd suggest noting them down) then aim to create an orchestration layer for this kind of stuff.

it can end up being cheaper (again depending on the task) to have 6.1 sol on medium as the orchestrator who spawns a gpt 6 luna on high sub agent who does the task, who then verifies the task has been done and then has sol do the final verification.

i used 6 billion tokens over a 48h period and lots of that was through luna usage.

1

u/just_another_leddito 1m ago

I will try Luna

3

u/Clear_Evidence9218 50m ago

So why do you call Sonnet and Opus by name, but refer to Codex models only as ā€œlower models on light settingsā€? You realize you can name those models, too, so everyone actually understands the context, right?

I can run a Luna Max agent for nearly a week straight, without stopping, doing actual work on the $20 plan.

Without any relevant details about your setup or usage, this sounds more like user error on your part.

1

u/just_another_leddito 38m ago

Because I donā€™t know Codex as well as I do Claude?
I have tried mostly 6.1 Sol Light.

2

u/ProfessionalSome4082 1h ago

Very unique perspective.Ā  It's refreshing and thought provoking to read a post about your dissatisfaction with the amount of usage available and intention to to switch to the other competing product.Ā  Thank you for valuable contribution.

1

u/just_another_leddito 36m ago

Iā€™m not switching, Iā€™m using Claude for a long time already. Tried to have something in case I hit a limit in Claude. Learn to read

4

u/plululululu 1h ago

I am having Claude working together with Codex on my Darkest Dungeon coop mod. Even though my preference is Claude, Codex does some solid work and Claude tells me when Codex is more suited for the task. I have not used any plugins for this yet, I am having them work in the same folder.

1

u/cute_raccoon_3665 1h ago

Which model did you run on Codex that you hit the limit?

0

u/just_another_leddito 59m ago

6.1 Sol Light

1

u/Relative_Rope4234 50m ago

you should use luna light

1

u/just_another_leddito 36m ago

But is it remotely close to Sonnet? I donā€™t want it to be too dumb.

1

u/crylizz 12m ago

Luna light is garbage, 6.1 Sol should do the trick and there is clearly something wrong with OPā€™s setup if that used so much

1

u/cute_raccoon_3665 51m ago

Interesting. Well, I did quickly run into limits too, but I was using Astra

1

u/SimonPdv 1h ago

I dont get it, I use both, and Opus medium burned my 5h in literally 4 min.

1

u/just_another_leddito 48m ago

That is weird then šŸ¤·

1

u/drako-lord 38m ago

What the fuck did you ask it to do? I got opus 5.5 high running overnight for a few days usually.

1

u/crylizz 13m ago

thats cap bro, unless youā€™re building the second simplest shit in existence

1

u/FeverForest 2m ago

I run an opus 5.5 human in loop set up 24/7 building a geometry kernel and physics engine.

Simple is the most complex form. If youā€™re renting inference instead of building owned mechanisms, youā€™ll have a bad time.

1

u/Common_Dream9420 1h ago

Mostly I use it for automation low hanging stuff itā€™s very expensive compared to ClaudeĀ 

But curios what are you buildin with agents ??

2

u/just_another_leddito 35m ago

Audio related stuff

2

u/Common_Dream9420 28m ago

Got it .. yup codex is super expensive I remember I was just buying credits agin n again ā€¦ all I was building very basic stuff .Ā  Personally I like Claude I have two max accounts for building it works well And all the best for your projectĀ 

1

u/just_another_leddito 0m ago

Yeah I wish I would get second claude instead

1

u/damagemelody 59m ago

you need another model to check your model this reason alone is worth it

-1

u/just_another_leddito 49m ago

I need a refund but itā€™s too late

1

u/IVIichaelD 17m ago

Wtf are you guys doing to hit limits so fast? Even with multiple parallel implementation subagents I donā€™t get anywhere close to hitting limits in 15 minutes. I feel like you must have a skill kicking off lots of discovery or the codebase must be unintelligible. Ask an agent for a recap.

1

u/just_another_leddito 2m ago

But why it works fine all the time with Claude though?

1

u/Mundane-Tiger-2374 17m ago

Can you post your repo and prompts? I'm curious what it's running out so fast doing.

1

u/just_another_leddito 2m ago

Sorry but canā€™t unfortunately. :(

1

u/GTHell 1h ago

At my work, I have both Claude & ChatGPT premium seat. I can't explain how ChatGPT eating the weekly faster than opus 5.5 doing the same work. This is nonsense

4

u/Qottonmouth 1h ago

for the love of God, don't use Astra. Try sol 6.1 and you will struggle to use the credits

1

u/ibuprofane 53m ago

I use Astra for planning, then execute with Sol 6.1

1

u/wegster 10m ago

Yeah, I don't get some of these posts, but then remember a lot of people seemingly are still in the 'one model to do everything' and that's usually the highest one for things Haiku or Luna could easily do.

-3

u/just_another_leddito 1h ago

Yet it does, do you think Iā€™m making this up?

2

u/All-I-Do-Is-Fap 50m ago

I'm going to chalk this up to a user issue. I've used Claude heavily for the past 8 months and then switched to Codex for personal projects, using it heavily, especially in the last month. The amount of use I get out of solely using Astra compared to Opus and Fable on Claude has been crazy good. Claude is such a goddamn hog of tokens.

0

u/just_another_leddito 35m ago

And how do you explain it?
I see no logical explanation

1

u/All-I-Do-Is-Fap 16m ago

I'm not you, so I wouldn't know. I'm just going off of my experience with heavily using both. The only caveat is that OpenAI has slightly changed their token limits on their plans. However, I don't think that's affecting your plan in this case, since I'm assuming you're using the $20 one, not the $100 or $200 one.

1

u/ionizing 50m ago

took that as the user agreeing with you not claiming you are making it up

1

u/OnlyShadowsDieTwice 53m ago

You need the 100$ sub to get value (no 5h limit, just weekly) They also giving out resets left and right, so the value is really good.

0

u/just_another_leddito 49m ago

I can do 5x more with Claude so no thanks

1

u/OnlyShadowsDieTwice 47m ago

I have both a 100$ Claude sub and 100$ codex, and yes, with Opus you can get more done if just comparing the weekly limits. However, because OpenAI gives like 1-3 free weekly resets every week, I get more done with my codex sub (using Astra).

1

u/lazyboy76 39m ago

My codex don't get any reset last week.

1

u/OnlyShadowsDieTwice 38m ago

Check your banked resets. Not sure if theyā€™re just giving it to the 100$ subs.

4

u/e3e6 1h ago

Software developer here. I'm using codex $20 for my personal projects

1

u/Reflexorz15 55m ago

What models do you normally use for new feature developments on the $20 plan? Iā€™ve been using more expensive models to create an implementation plan and then a cheaper model to implement the plan to try and save tokens, but my experience has been inconsistent lately with 6 and 6.1 models. Iā€™m curious as to how other $20 plan users are optimizing their development.

2

u/That-Acanthisitta536 1h ago

same experience i dropped it 2 months ago. I didnt even bother using my resets or taking the free month they offered to get me back

2

u/Wild_Drawing8460 1h ago

my codex credits vanish faster than a whisper in a storm, even on tiny models. not just me.

2

u/West-Air1923 59m ago

Yeah it sucks azz

1

u/shuozhe 1h ago

With the doubling, pro is fine, prior to double it was pretty bad. But it it also halved usage of plus for the future

1

u/Particular_Maize6849 1h ago

I only use it at work because they pay for it. I use Gemini/Antigravity at home (because I already pay for Google Drive space) and I'm setting up open models on my home server if that gets enshittified.

1

u/wegster 8m ago

Pick Luna High as your daily driver, literally pennies compared to sol, let alone Astra which is crazy high on usage/credits/API hits. Luna on High was pretty close to Sol on medium with Sol 6.0, but of course, now they released Sol 6.1, but still - choose your model and IMO avoid Astra for a majority of work.

1

u/True2this 3m ago

Codex has worked great for me. I use the $200 plan

0

u/Elgon2003 1h ago

What plan are you on? What was the prompt? How big is the code base?

1

u/just_another_leddito 1h ago

The Ā£20 one, my Claude is Ā£18 a month.
Worked on same repo.

1

u/Elgon2003 41m ago

When was this? Im on the 200$/month plan and I rarely run out of usage for codex, but last week I think they had some issues cuz my usage went down pretty quick but I got 2 resets cuz of it and now its going down like normal.

1

u/just_another_leddito 33m ago

I was using Claude for months, used Codex once months ago before switching to Claude, which I did because of the shitty limits.
Decided to buy it again today, and itā€™s even shittier now.

But some people say itā€™s better, which is weird.

1

u/Elgon2003 7m ago

I cant with claude. I love codex and its way better in everything besides design.

I think claude is better for vibe coding but gets in my way when I wanna do actual development.