Two terminal / coding agents, side by side. Facts below link to their sources; last checked 2026-10-17.
| Claude Code | Codex CLI | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | terminal / coding agent | terminal / coding agent |
| Pricing | From $20/month | From $20/month |
| Free tier | Not listed | Yes |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Latest release | — | — |

Command-line tool for agentic coding that lets developers delegate substantial engineering tasks to Claude from the terminal; later added VS Code and JetBrains integrations and an SDK. source

Open-source (Apache-2.0) coding agent from OpenAI that runs on your machine. Sign in with ChatGPT or use an API key; also available as IDE extension, desktop app and cloud agent. source
Claude Code: Anthropic's agentic coding tool: delegate engineering tasks from your terminal. Codex CLI: OpenAI's open-source coding agent that runs locally in your terminal.
Claude Code: From $20/month. Codex CLI: From $20/month (free tier available). Prices change often; confirm on the official pricing pages.