6 ms·

> and (partly as a result) it's fairly resource inefficient (often uses 1GB of RAM or more. For a TUI). That's (one of the reasons) why I'm favoring Codex over

by jmmv 7mo ago

> and (partly as a result) it's fairly resource inefficient (often uses 1GB of RAM or more. For a TUI). That's (one of the reasons) why I'm favoring Codex over Claude Code. Claude Code is an... Electron app (for a TUI? WTH?) and Codex is Rust. The difference is tangible: the former feels sluggish and does some odd redrawing when the terminal size changes, while the latter definitely feels more snappy to me (leaving aside that GPT's responses also seem more concise). At some point, I had both chewing concurrently on the same machine and same project, and Claude Code was using multiple GBs of RAM and 100% CPU whereas Codex was happy with 80 MB and 6%. Performance _is_ a feature and I'm afraid the amounts of code AI produces without supervision lead to an amount of bloat we haven't seen before...

RagnarD 7mo ago
Totally agree. I'm baffled by those who don't clearly see that Codex works better than C.C. in many ways.
- Aeolun 7mo ago
  Codex being faster is not at all equivalent to working better. Claude Code does what I need from it most of the time.
  - RagnarD 7mo ago
    I said better, not faster. Primarily, it writes better code, works more smoothly, is better at describing what it's doing and what it's done.
    - Aeolun 7mo ago
      Well, yes, but it was in response to a post mostly waxing lyrical about using rust instead of typescript, so forgive me if I got the wrong impression. Also, that is so far outside my experience that I can’t tell if you are joking. Codex seems to always do exactly what I ask of it, nothing more, and nothing less, and with as many shortcuts as possible.
petcat 7mo ago
Anthropic needs to spend some tokens rewriting Claude Code in Rust (yes, really). The difference in feel between Codex and Claude Code is obvious. The whole thing is vibed anyway, I'm sure they could get it done in a week or two for their quality standards.
- seunosewa 7mo ago
  I'd suggest Go ahead of Rust. It's more accessible to contributors.
  - petcat 7mo ago
    > It's more accessible to contributors. What would make go more "accessible to contributors" than Rust?
    - yoz-y 7mo ago
      Go is a language one can learn and become functional in an afternoon. Rust is way more involved.
      - Yokohiii 7mo ago
        To vibe coders it doesn't matter, right?
        kelipso 7mo ago
        Even then, you still need to read that code and Rust is way less read friendly than Go.
        Yokohiii 7mo ago
        I have the impression that most vibe coders don't read code. I guess they would probably use something accessible to them, just in case.
ctmnt 7mo ago
I think you’re confusing capital c Claude Code, the desktop Electron app, and lowercase c `claude`, the command line tool with an interactive TUI. They’re both TypeScript under the hood, but the latter is React + Ink rendered into the terminal. The redraw glitches you’re referring to are actually signs of what I consider to be a pretty major feature, a reason to use `claude` instead of `codex` or `opencode`: `claude` doesn’t use the alternate screen, whereas the other two do. Meaning that it uses the standard screen buffer, meaning that your chat history is in the terminal (or multiplexer) scrollback. I much prefer that, and I totally get why they’ve put so much effort into getting it to work well. In that context handling SIGWINCH has some issues and trickiness. Well worth the tradeoff, imo.
- jimmydoe 7mo ago
  not sure if same reason but window resize feels better in claude than codex. on my m1, claude is noticeably slower when starting, but it feels ok after that.
  - walthamstow 7mo ago
    I had a nasty slow claude code startup time at one point something like 8s, a clean install sorts it all out. Back up your mcp config and skills and you're good.
    - MarsIronPI 7mo ago
      That sounds like poor engineering on Anthropic's part. Good software doesn't slow down over time like that.
- conradev 7mo ago
  Codex is using its app server protocol to build a nice client/server separation that I enjoy on top of the predictable Rust performance. You can run a codex instance on machine A and connect the TUI to it from machine B. The same open source core and protocol is shared between the Codex app, VS Code and Xcode.
doug_durham 7mo ago
I run many instances of Claude Code simultaneously and have not experienced what you are seeing. It sounds like you have a bias of Rust over Typescript.
- jazzypants 7mo ago
  No, they are describing a typical experience with the two apps. Just open both apps, run a few queries, and take a look at the difference in resource management yourself. It sounds like you have a bias of Claude Code over Codex.
  - Implicated 7mo ago
    Uh, it sounds like you're having trouble understanding that people in this thread are talking about two wildly different "claude code" applications. Those who are claiming the resources issues don't apply to them are referring to the cli application, ie: `claude` and those are saying things like "Just open both apps..." are surely referring to their GUI versions.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    - jazzypants 7mo ago
      No, I've never used the GUI version. I literally just had to close and reopen the terminal running the Claude Code CLI on my Mac yesterday because it was taking too many resources. It generally happens when I ask Claude to use multiple sub agents. It's an obvious memory leak.
    - jmmv 7mo ago
      No, I _never_ referred to the GUI versions.
trq_ 7mo ago
Claude Code is not an electron app.
- tmstieff 7mo ago
  It does use React for rendering the terminal UI.
  - jdpigeon 7mo ago
    Did not realize this. That's bizarre!
smugtrain 7mo ago
On the 100% cpu issue, I’m curious to know, what is the processor and was it performing any other cpu intensive work?
- jmmv 7mo ago
  I’m not sure why any of this matters? I was looking at top, and the only two non-idle processes were claude and codex.
kaufmann 7mo ago
Could it be, that one source of the memory usage is the built-in language server?

by jmmv 7mo ago

RagnarD 7mo ago

Totally agree. I'm baffled by those who don't clearly see that Codex works better than C.C. in many ways.

Aeolun 7mo ago
Codex being faster is not at all equivalent to working better. Claude Code does what I need from it most of the time.
- RagnarD 7mo ago
  I said better, not faster. Primarily, it writes better code, works more smoothly, is better at describing what it's doing and what it's done.
  - Aeolun 7mo ago
    Well, yes, but it was in response to a post mostly waxing lyrical about using rust instead of typescript, so forgive me if I got the wrong impression. Also, that is so far outside my experience that I can’t tell if you are joking. Codex seems to always do exactly what I ask of it, nothing more, and nothing less, and with as many shortcuts as possible.

petcat 7mo ago

Anthropic needs to spend some tokens rewriting Claude Code in Rust (yes, really). The difference in feel between Codex and Claude Code is obvious. The whole thing is vibed anyway, I'm sure they could get it done in a week or two for their quality standards.

seunosewa 7mo ago
I'd suggest Go ahead of Rust. It's more accessible to contributors.
- petcat 7mo ago
  > It's more accessible to contributors. What would make go more "accessible to contributors" than Rust?
  - yoz-y 7mo ago
    Go is a language one can learn and become functional in an afternoon. Rust is way more involved.
    - Yokohiii 7mo ago
      To vibe coders it doesn't matter, right?
      - kelipso 7mo ago
        Even then, you still need to read that code and Rust is way less read friendly than Go.
        Yokohiii 7mo ago
        I have the impression that most vibe coders don't read code. I guess they would probably use something accessible to them, just in case.

ctmnt 7mo ago

I think you’re confusing capital c Claude Code, the desktop Electron app, and lowercase c `claude`, the command line tool with an interactive TUI. They’re both TypeScript under the hood, but the latter is React + Ink rendered into the terminal. The redraw glitches you’re referring to are actually signs of what I consider to be a pretty major feature, a reason to use `claude` instead of `codex` or `opencode`: `claude` doesn’t use the alternate screen, whereas the other two do. Meaning that it uses the standard screen buffer, meaning that your chat history is in the terminal (or multiplexer) scrollback. I much prefer that, and I totally get why they’ve put so much effort into getting it to work well. In that context handling SIGWINCH has some issues and trickiness. Well worth the tradeoff, imo.

jimmydoe 7mo ago
not sure if same reason but window resize feels better in claude than codex. on my m1, claude is noticeably slower when starting, but it feels ok after that.
- walthamstow 7mo ago
  I had a nasty slow claude code startup time at one point something like 8s, a clean install sorts it all out. Back up your mcp config and skills and you're good.
  - MarsIronPI 7mo ago
    That sounds like poor engineering on Anthropic's part. Good software doesn't slow down over time like that.
conradev 7mo ago
Codex is using its app server protocol to build a nice client/server separation that I enjoy on top of the predictable Rust performance. You can run a codex instance on machine A and connect the TUI to it from machine B. The same open source core and protocol is shared between the Codex app, VS Code and Xcode.

doug_durham 7mo ago

I run many instances of Claude Code simultaneously and have not experienced what you are seeing. It sounds like you have a bias of Rust over Typescript.

jazzypants 7mo ago
No, they are describing a typical experience with the two apps. Just open both apps, run a few queries, and take a look at the difference in resource management yourself. It sounds like you have a bias of Claude Code over Codex.
- Implicated 7mo ago
  Uh, it sounds like you're having trouble understanding that people in this thread are talking about two wildly different "claude code" applications. Those who are claiming the resources issues don't apply to them are referring to the cli application, ie: `claude` and those are saying things like "Just open both apps..." are surely referring to their GUI versions.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - jazzypants 7mo ago
    No, I've never used the GUI version. I literally just had to close and reopen the terminal running the Claude Code CLI on my Mac yesterday because it was taking too many resources. It generally happens when I ask Claude to use multiple sub agents. It's an obvious memory leak.
  - jmmv 7mo ago
    No, I _never_ referred to the GUI versions.

trq_ 7mo ago

Claude Code is not an electron app.

tmstieff 7mo ago
It does use React for rendering the terminal UI.
- jdpigeon 7mo ago
  Did not realize this. That's bizarre!

smugtrain 7mo ago

On the 100% cpu issue, I’m curious to know, what is the processor and was it performing any other cpu intensive work?

jmmv 7mo ago
I’m not sure why any of this matters? I was looking at top, and the only two non-idle processes were claude and codex.

kaufmann 7mo ago

Could it be, that one source of the memory usage is the built-in language server?