How does Codex compare with the alternatives?
37signals and Superhuman drive with Claude Code and have Codex check the work, and Every's Codex converts were drifting back after Opus 5.5. Choose Codex alone when plan limits, token spend, native Windows or per-team policy decide; public merge data does not separate the two.
Choose Cursor if engineers will move into its editor and want models from several providers. Choose Codex to keep their editors, Cursor included, with the agent bundled into ChatGPT plans.
Choose Copilot to keep agent work and its budgets inside GitHub, where it can also run the Codex agent. Choose Codex through ChatGPT for the desktop app and Codex Cloud on OpenAI's current models.
Both are open-source terminal agents with MCP support. Codex comes with ChatGPT plans and adds an IDE extension, apps, and cloud tasks, while Gemini CLI comes with Gemini Code Assist licenses or Google Cloud billing. Engineers who need the editor, the apps and cloud tasks point to Codex; terminal and CI work billed through Google Cloud points to Gemini CLI.
