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Claude Opus and Fable are so bad compared to GPT-5.6-Sol it's ridiculous, their desktop client is worse, and the value is worse because OpenAI has been spamming

by wilg 1mo ago

Claude Opus and Fable are so bad compared to GPT-5.6-Sol it's ridiculous, their desktop client is worse, and the value is worse because OpenAI has been spamming discounts. They better get their shit together at Anthropic! Edit: If you're mad I'm light on the details I have provided some in the replies.

johnwheeler 1mo ago
I don't know why this comment's getting down voted. It's absolutely true. I would also add that Anthropic seems to limit, compute, the more you use it because I'm on the Max subscription, and it just stops working for me. I'll ask it to do something and it'll say, I tried, but I couldn't do it over and over again or some variation of. But it doesn't do that at the start of my subscription, so...
- Mond_ 1mo ago
  > I don't know why this comment's getting down voted. Because just calling something bad does not add a lot to the conversation. It's not thoughtful, interesting, or good.
  - wilg 1mo ago
    Huh? Comparing model quality is something everyone is constantly doing here. If you need more specifics, it speaks in an incomprehensible way, stops working lazily, does a bad job and misses things constantly, and makes a lot more mistakes. I have both a $200/mo Codex and Claude subscription and swap between them when one runs out, and I'm always more miserable when I have to use Claude. The Claude desktop app is also widely panned, as I mentioned, and for me this mainly is due to general UX and a poor remote control interface. Codex's connected machine support is top notch. I also mentioned the value of the Codex resets!
  - johnwheeler 1mo ago
    The thing is, is it's not a subjective thing. It's objectively bad. I think that's what the story is or the appeal of the post. It's calling out, something that everyone else thinks is so great, but it's actually really pretty bad compared to the competition. Trust me, I used to want Claude to win, but it's not.
- kelnos 1mo ago
  Because "$X is bad" is boring, especially when it comes to LLMs. I use Opus 5 and it's fine. It's more chatty and sometimes a little more difficult to steer than 4.x was, but I've found the code quality of 5 to be much higher. Everyone has different experiences with these things (for example, I've never experienced what you describe), and "$X is bad" is not conducive to thoughtful discussion.
  - wilg 1mo ago
    The issue isn't whether it's fine, it's that both Fable 5 and Opus 5 are worse to use for the job of programming than Codex-5.6-Sol in my experience. I am directly comparing these top tier models every week in my work, and many friends have left Claude in favor of Codex recently because of Claude's poor model quality. One thing I do like about Claude is that the normal (non-Code) chat interface supports MCP, whereas ChatGPT basically does not.
- alphabettsy 1mo ago
  It might be objectively true for you. Opus 5 is fine for me and works better and faster on low and medium than higher effort on prior versions. Same as 5.6 Sol compared to 5.5 or 5.4.
hombre_fatal 1mo ago
gpt-5.6-sol uses fewer tokens and OpenAI has been more generous with usage, but quality-wise I wouldn't say they are inferior to each other. I have a Claude Code and OpenAI subscription so that I can use Opus/Fable/gpt-5.6 as I please, and the models are often catching things the other models missed. So much that I would significantly weaken my workflow if I dropped one subscription. My best workflow at the moment is to create the initial plan with Fable (before review/revise-cycling with other models). From my own testing it seems slightly better at arriving at high-level ideal solutions after sweeping the whole project, projecting future needs, then coming up with good trade-offs like "by construction" correctness. While mostly subjective, maybe the closest objectivity I have here is noticing fewer revision cycles needed with Fable-initialized plans.
- kbrannigan 1mo ago
  Any model currently in 2026 is better than the ones of 2024. What is the quality difference really. I mean i think if a developer has a good handle of the code the difference is marginal . Unless we 100% offload the thinking to the model and act like a prompt manager. Maybe
  - hombre_fatal 1mo ago
    For personal projects, I defer almost everything day-to-day to the models, so it gives me a good feel for what the models are good at. Even then, it's kind of a wash these days between the sota models, and we're talking about maybe a 10% performance difference or something. But every once in a while there's the experience of one model spinning its wheels on a bug/repro/issue while another model comes in and one-shots the solution.
    - kbrannigan 1mo ago
      That make sense. Let me ask you this When the project reaches a level of complexity . Do you simply reach for better models or do you reengineer it or does the project scope stop at the egdge of the model's capabilities. I am asking because in my personal projects after a while they becomes a giant messy ball of wires and i basically trust the model to untangle it for me , by the time it untangles properly, I run into my token limits.
guywithahat 1mo ago
Sure OpenAI has open source tools, and equivalent or better models, and lower prices, and they get along better with other agentic tools, but Anthropic has much better marketing and I guess that's what matters.
GlickWick 1mo ago
This is just the cycle. If the OpenAI offerings are better and cheaper, people will shift there and then those discounts that made it such a deal will evaporate. Anthropic or someone else will entice people back with the discounts. The whole thing is getting ridiculous.

by wilg 1mo ago

johnwheeler 1mo ago

I don't know why this comment's getting down voted. It's absolutely true. I would also add that Anthropic seems to limit, compute, the more you use it because I'm on the Max subscription, and it just stops working for me. I'll ask it to do something and it'll say, I tried, but I couldn't do it over and over again or some variation of. But it doesn't do that at the start of my subscription, so...

Mond_ 1mo ago
> I don't know why this comment's getting down voted. Because just calling something bad does not add a lot to the conversation. It's not thoughtful, interesting, or good.
- wilg 1mo ago
  Huh? Comparing model quality is something everyone is constantly doing here. If you need more specifics, it speaks in an incomprehensible way, stops working lazily, does a bad job and misses things constantly, and makes a lot more mistakes. I have both a $200/mo Codex and Claude subscription and swap between them when one runs out, and I'm always more miserable when I have to use Claude. The Claude desktop app is also widely panned, as I mentioned, and for me this mainly is due to general UX and a poor remote control interface. Codex's connected machine support is top notch. I also mentioned the value of the Codex resets!
- johnwheeler 1mo ago
  The thing is, is it's not a subjective thing. It's objectively bad. I think that's what the story is or the appeal of the post. It's calling out, something that everyone else thinks is so great, but it's actually really pretty bad compared to the competition. Trust me, I used to want Claude to win, but it's not.
kelnos 1mo ago
Because "$X is bad" is boring, especially when it comes to LLMs. I use Opus 5 and it's fine. It's more chatty and sometimes a little more difficult to steer than 4.x was, but I've found the code quality of 5 to be much higher. Everyone has different experiences with these things (for example, I've never experienced what you describe), and "$X is bad" is not conducive to thoughtful discussion.
- wilg 1mo ago
  The issue isn't whether it's fine, it's that both Fable 5 and Opus 5 are worse to use for the job of programming than Codex-5.6-Sol in my experience. I am directly comparing these top tier models every week in my work, and many friends have left Claude in favor of Codex recently because of Claude's poor model quality. One thing I do like about Claude is that the normal (non-Code) chat interface supports MCP, whereas ChatGPT basically does not.
alphabettsy 1mo ago
It might be objectively true for you. Opus 5 is fine for me and works better and faster on low and medium than higher effort on prior versions. Same as 5.6 Sol compared to 5.5 or 5.4.

hombre_fatal 1mo ago

gpt-5.6-sol uses fewer tokens and OpenAI has been more generous with usage, but quality-wise I wouldn't say they are inferior to each other. I have a Claude Code and OpenAI subscription so that I can use Opus/Fable/gpt-5.6 as I please, and the models are often catching things the other models missed. So much that I would significantly weaken my workflow if I dropped one subscription. My best workflow at the moment is to create the initial plan with Fable (before review/revise-cycling with other models). From my own testing it seems slightly better at arriving at high-level ideal solutions after sweeping the whole project, projecting future needs, then coming up with good trade-offs like "by construction" correctness. While mostly subjective, maybe the closest objectivity I have here is noticing fewer revision cycles needed with Fable-initialized plans.

kbrannigan 1mo ago
Any model currently in 2026 is better than the ones of 2024. What is the quality difference really. I mean i think if a developer has a good handle of the code the difference is marginal . Unless we 100% offload the thinking to the model and act like a prompt manager. Maybe
- hombre_fatal 1mo ago
  For personal projects, I defer almost everything day-to-day to the models, so it gives me a good feel for what the models are good at. Even then, it's kind of a wash these days between the sota models, and we're talking about maybe a 10% performance difference or something. But every once in a while there's the experience of one model spinning its wheels on a bug/repro/issue while another model comes in and one-shots the solution.
  - kbrannigan 1mo ago
    That make sense. Let me ask you this When the project reaches a level of complexity . Do you simply reach for better models or do you reengineer it or does the project scope stop at the egdge of the model's capabilities. I am asking because in my personal projects after a while they becomes a giant messy ball of wires and i basically trust the model to untangle it for me , by the time it untangles properly, I run into my token limits.

guywithahat 1mo ago

Sure OpenAI has open source tools, and equivalent or better models, and lower prices, and they get along better with other agentic tools, but Anthropic has much better marketing and I guess that's what matters.

GlickWick 1mo ago

This is just the cycle. If the OpenAI offerings are better and cheaper, people will shift there and then those discounts that made it such a deal will evaporate. Anthropic or someone else will entice people back with the discounts. The whole thing is getting ridiculous.