Opus 5.5 vs Codex: coding and browser use

Kokin compares Opus 5.5 and Codex: the former writes code faster and better, the latter handles browser tasks like signups and admin panels more confidently, while OpenAI still won't sell its $200 plan to new users.

Author: Michael Kokin ·

Opus 5.5 vs. Codex

The compute race

A few weeks ago it looked like Anthropic had serious compute problems while OpenAI had practically unlimited capacity. Today, with Opus 5.5, Claude has enough for everyone — meanwhile OpenAI still won't let new users buy the $200 plan (20x the usage of the base tier).

The big question: will OpenAI unveil a new coding model tomorrow, at its annual Devdays conference, that beats Opus 5.5 — or not.

The AI assistant market

There are already more than a hundred players in the market. A lot of people I know in the US use Instinct — everything runs through iMessage and texts. And ads for Meta's (Facebook's) Muse are plastered all over the New York subway.

The whole scene is also buzzing about how the movement to rein in AI overlaps, membership-wise, with the friends of Aella, the sex-worker-and-data-scientist — but I recently found out my oldest daughter and her friends read this channel, so I'll skip the recap.

Did I miss anything important?