Vibe check: Opus 5.5 is 30% faster, 40% cheaper, pulling Codex converts back to Claude
every · x · 2026-09-23
Every.to's team testing suggests Opus 5.5 is winning back Claude power users who had switched to Codex. Key points:
- Capability and price: near-Fable power at roughly 60% of Fable's token price; 30% faster and 40% cheaper per task than Opus 5.
- Personality fix: Opus 5 was hard to love — argumentative about changes, convoluted explanations, overlong runs on simple tasks. 5.5 is noticeably better.
- Individual reactions: Kieran Klaassen found it as good as and sometimes better than Fable 5.1, making it his daily driver; Mike Taylor and Tyler Nishida, former Claude users who moved to Codex, are reconsidering — Nishida said his jaw dropped five or six times this week.
- Caveats: Dan Shipper calls it a "smaller Fable" — his go-to for big end-to-end coding projects, but he still prefers Codex for knowledge work and writing. Writing often buries the point, and it can get carried away.
Verdict: the price cut and personality improvements are pulling lapsed users back, though it hasn't displaced rivals across every workflow.
Related event: Claude Opus 5.5 Launches to Top Rankings with Lower Price and Faster Speed(28 posts)→
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