Claude is best for generic coding. If you ever try low level coding with cpp and wanna implement unsafe coding for high perrformance, claude will fail flat. Gemini 3 is best for such cases. Telling from my experience.
Problem with claude is it always prefer enterprise safety nets and never obey what you ask to do it. So best combo is claude + gemini.
Iam working on a zero copy write path with spinlocks and memory arena allocation and l1/l2 cache for sequential writes with 20 ns budget. Problem at that level is timing bugs and races, claude messed up two times and i corrected it with gemini. Debugging is nightmare as adidng logs makes the bug disappear. Somehow gemini was able to fix it without need for vtune.
Anthropic models are the best for coding hands down. Gemini Pro wants to make things look pretty but fails on the back end stuff - great for visual stuff. GPT 5.2 - so far not good. Codex is fine for small stuff but everything seems to look the same no matter how specific the prompts are.
I used All of these with Copilot in vscode - they all have strengths / weaknesses - all of them are heavy of token price too.
Claude Optus is my goto - and I have not been proven otherwise yet.
It really understands visual cues really well - For example - You say you want a medieval styles front end - it will use fonts - colours - styles that REALLY suite what your requesting. Use LLMArena on the compare tool and its easy to see the difference.
I've had extremely good experience with CC so far. I use it for any repetitive non-difficult task. For anything that is pretty complex, like lower level stuff, I just let it to create the initial boilerplate and then manually code the rest of that feature. For very complex stuff, even if the AI can code most of it, I wouldn't leave those parts untouched as it's such a high probability that the AI has done something stupid you'd pay for later.
Yeah honestly, I’m not using GitHub Copilot these days, so I don’t have a fresh take.
From what I remember though, the usage limits were pretty generous. That said, it never felt as strong as Claude Code to me — especially for deeper reasoning or more complex stuff. After that, I kind of just stopped using it.
Maybe it’s better now, but yeah, that was my experience back then.
It depends on what you are doing. And that trend is going to continue. Different models and different tools are going to appeal to different use cases.
Not really. If what you are doing is “coding”, CC is best. Codex worth considering if you do t want to pay 200/month for CC. Antigravity worth considering if you are broke.
Idk I always get the best results with ChatGPT and Codex. From visual stuff like Landing Page and Blogs to actual Code it usually provides longer and better code and understands the assignment better. Especially Gemini tends to try to overdo it but yet the code is shorter and not sufficient.
Btw I also like ChatGPT as a chat bot more it’s more realistic down to earth than Gemini.
What’s beautiful about all of this, is that each of us will get mightily different results from AI. Why? Because using AI is slowly going to be seen as a skill and will shift the labor market in unforeseen ways. We can’t all orchestrate the same.
Yes. I seriously suspect people who doubt it at all are not actively switching between models right now.
I use Gemini as my workhorse largely due to costs being lower and using it for non-code things therefore having spare Gemini compute but not Claude, and quite frankly Claude is miles ahead. I've found myself tearing my hair out over trying to prompt my way out of an issue in Gemini only to throw it to Claude and find it solving the problem, unraveling things to make it clearer, and to do it faster.
The benchmarks might have you thinking they are neck and neck, but in the real world not a chance.
$100 Claude Code with $20 Codex subscription - using Codex as a reviewer of the plan and the code and also troubleshooting any tough bugs (like a second opinion).
Codex with GPT 5.2 on high reasoning is my go-to driver for a reasonably big project 400k lines of Rust and JS. It's also nice to have a smart backup model like Gemini 3 pro for reviewing gpt and creating plans/architecture.
I swear by Opus and sonnet to be the kings. Absolutely the best.
And Codex max xhigh or high for the Commander in chief. It is bulletproof in actual generation. Delivered via cli.
Gemini 3 is trash.
That said, I think opus and sonnet shine much stronger in antigravity than CC for me
As mention in other comments: it depends. As Web is anyways the best for entering coding and getting quick results, that’s also the area where Claude code shines.
Especially Opus 4.5 builds superior designs & pages. Tool use / exploration of codebase is super good compared to other cli tools. Output comes very fast, so doing improvement iterations is also fast. For me it’s boosting web dev output by factor 5-10 I would roughly say
Claude code is the best right now but apparently gpt 5.2 perms better in coding related tasks. Gemini 3 is definitely the best for building pretty UI/frontends by far though.
Claude is best for generic coding. If you ever try low level coding with cpp and wanna implement unsafe coding for high perrformance, claude will fail flat. Gemini 3 is best for such cases. Telling from my experience. Problem with claude is it always prefer enterprise safety nets and never obey what you ask to do it. So best combo is claude + gemini.
Ive been using claude for machine code today. How low level do you want to go? :)
Binary.
Iam working on a zero copy write path with spinlocks and memory arena allocation and l1/l2 cache for sequential writes with 20 ns budget. Problem at that level is timing bugs and races, claude messed up two times and i corrected it with gemini. Debugging is nightmare as adidng logs makes the bug disappear. Somehow gemini was able to fix it without need for vtune.
Iam talking about gemini 3. With studio not gemini 2.5.
Anthropic models are the best for coding hands down. Gemini Pro wants to make things look pretty but fails on the back end stuff - great for visual stuff. GPT 5.2 - so far not good. Codex is fine for small stuff but everything seems to look the same no matter how specific the prompts are.
I used All of these with Copilot in vscode - they all have strengths / weaknesses - all of them are heavy of token price too.
Claude Optus is my goto - and I have not been proven otherwise yet.
Agreed, cannot use anything else after Opus, I’m doing front end too, in what way Gemini is better?
It really understands visual cues really well - For example - You say you want a medieval styles front end - it will use fonts - colours - styles that REALLY suite what your requesting. Use LLMArena on the compare tool and its easy to see the difference.
I’ve found Gemini to be very good for backend
I have no doubt that other people will have different experiences, and it may have been the prompt etc in my part. Only human…
Gemini 3 is much better than 2.5 and absolutely debug like a pro.
Yes Claude Code is the best overall.
But it also has one of the lowest limits for its price.
I tried it lately again after some time using other tools. And they really made the limits much worse than just a few months ago.
I've had extremely good experience with CC so far. I use it for any repetitive non-difficult task. For anything that is pretty complex, like lower level stuff, I just let it to create the initial boilerplate and then manually code the rest of that feature. For very complex stuff, even if the AI can code most of it, I wouldn't leave those parts untouched as it's such a high probability that the AI has done something stupid you'd pay for later.
That's not vibecoding though
It’s not and I don’t believe in pure vibe coding for anything that’d be considered a serious project or enterprise
If price is not considered, Claude Code at $100 is not as good as other combinations, such as Codex + Kiro + other tools.
What other tools that you have tested? Give impressions please
I’ve tested Cursor, Claude Code, Kiro, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Windsurf.
One honest take: the $20 Claude Code plan runs out pretty fast. If your budget is tight, it can feel limiting.
From my experience, some solid combos are:
For MCPs, I’ve had good results with BrightData MCP, Sentry MCP, Serena MCP, and Noteit MCP — all pretty useful depending on what you’re building.
Overall, mixing tools tends to work better than betting everything on a single one
How about GitHub Copilot Pro in VS Code?
Yeah honestly, I’m not using GitHub Copilot these days, so I don’t have a fresh take.
From what I remember though, the usage limits were pretty generous. That said, it never felt as strong as Claude Code to me — especially for deeper reasoning or more complex stuff. After that, I kind of just stopped using it.
Maybe it’s better now, but yeah, that was my experience back then.
I just started the free trial. Trying to get away from the Claude desktop app.
Nah. You’re over complicating things. Claude code 20x Max, just use that.
Op asked what is best.
$20 claude code - lol, you’re not even getting opus 4.5. Of course that’s not the best.
$20 claude code is like someone giving you a tic tac when you wanted an ice cream.
It depends on what you are doing. And that trend is going to continue. Different models and different tools are going to appeal to different use cases.
Not really. If what you are doing is “coding”, CC is best. Codex worth considering if you do t want to pay 200/month for CC. Antigravity worth considering if you are broke.
It’s pretty simple really.
Nah replit the best. Replit solves issues that claude code fails
Claude Code with Z.ai as the backend is hands-down the best performance/value. I posted about how to set it up here: https://old.reddit.com/r/vibecoding/comments/1p08uft/how_to_use_claude_code_for_a_fraction_of_the_cost/
Idk I always get the best results with ChatGPT and Codex. From visual stuff like Landing Page and Blogs to actual Code it usually provides longer and better code and understands the assignment better. Especially Gemini tends to try to overdo it but yet the code is shorter and not sufficient. Btw I also like ChatGPT as a chat bot more it’s more realistic down to earth than Gemini.
ChatGPT 4o is best for a chat. Claude code is FAR better for coding, no comparison.
I've been a software engineer for 20 years and prefer Claude models.
Isn't codex better at debugging?
What’s beautiful about all of this, is that each of us will get mightily different results from AI. Why? Because using AI is slowly going to be seen as a skill and will shift the labor market in unforeseen ways. We can’t all orchestrate the same.
Yes. I seriously suspect people who doubt it at all are not actively switching between models right now.
I use Gemini as my workhorse largely due to costs being lower and using it for non-code things therefore having spare Gemini compute but not Claude, and quite frankly Claude is miles ahead. I've found myself tearing my hair out over trying to prompt my way out of an issue in Gemini only to throw it to Claude and find it solving the problem, unraveling things to make it clearer, and to do it faster.
The benchmarks might have you thinking they are neck and neck, but in the real world not a chance.
Funny, I had instances of the exact opposite, where claude opus was going in circles and Gemini 3 solved it right away
Overall? Yes. Value for the money? Depends on task. There are many coding agents nowadays which are cheaper, and have higher limits.
Answer: yes, absolutely.
The only competition is codex and that’s not as good. And antigravity kind of competes.
Just use CC. It’s going to cost you, deal with that. Once you do, it’s beautiful.
Most people who even question if Claude Code is the best are not actually using it on a max plan. Expensive, but clearly superior.
If you’re not actively using Max with Opus 4.5, you cannot answer this question.
Spent a lot of time with Claude and Cursor but if I had to choose one I’d choose Claude
What about Figma make?
$100 Claude Code with $20 Codex subscription - using Codex as a reviewer of the plan and the code and also troubleshooting any tough bugs (like a second opinion).
Codex with GPT 5.2 on high reasoning is my go-to driver for a reasonably big project 400k lines of Rust and JS. It's also nice to have a smart backup model like Gemini 3 pro for reviewing gpt and creating plans/architecture.
Yes.
I swear by Opus and sonnet to be the kings. Absolutely the best.
And Codex max xhigh or high for the Commander in chief. It is bulletproof in actual generation. Delivered via cli.
Gemini 3 is trash.
That said, I think opus and sonnet shine much stronger in antigravity than CC for me
As mention in other comments: it depends. As Web is anyways the best for entering coding and getting quick results, that’s also the area where Claude code shines.
Especially Opus 4.5 builds superior designs & pages. Tool use / exploration of codebase is super good compared to other cli tools. Output comes very fast, so doing improvement iterations is also fast. For me it’s boosting web dev output by factor 5-10 I would roughly say
Same here I’m noticing it’s so good with web development, but building apps with it is still a bit of a hassle 🥲
Gemini best all around, GPT #2, Anthropic a very distant 3rd at this point.
Claude code is the best right now but apparently gpt 5.2 perms better in coding related tasks. Gemini 3 is definitely the best for building pretty UI/frontends by far though.
Claude models (Opus 4.5 / Sonnet) plus Kilo Code have been my main workflow for the last 4-5 months now.
Honestly this will sound weird but I've noticed Codex to be better at Frontend than Opus. I rely mostly on claude but have both.