GPT-5 Codex vs o3

1. Purpose-Built for Agentic Coding

• Optimized specifically for scenarios where the model must act as an autonomous or semi-autonomous coding agent.
• Tailored for Codex workflows such as planning, editing, debugging, and multi-step tool-driven code tasks.

2. Advanced Coding Reasoning

• Extends GPT-5's higher reasoning mode to better handle complex software logic and multi-file dependencies.
• Produces more accurate, structured, and maintainable code across modern programming languages.

3. Strong Tool Use in Developer-Like Environments

• Designed for Codex's agent environment, enabling the model to:
  • Read and modify files
  • Follow function signatures and API contracts
  • Navigate codebases with awareness of context and structure

4. Large Context Window for Full-Project Understanding

• 400,000-token context allows ingestion of:
  • Entire repositories
  • Multiple files at once
  • Architectural descriptions
• Enables long-range reasoning across codebases rather than isolated snippets.

5. Multimodal Capability for Development Tasks

• Accepts text and image as input (great for screenshots of error logs, UI mocks, whiteboards).
• Outputs text only, focusing its output precision on code, reasoning, and documentation.

6. Continuous Snapshot Updates

• The underlying model version is regularly upgraded behind the scenes.
• Ensures developers always use the best coding-enhanced GPT-5 variant without changing model names.

7. Reliable Instruction Following

• Very strong adherence to constraints like:
  • File/folder structure requirements
  • Framework conventions
  • Naming patterns
  • Linting rules
• Makes it suitable for production coding agents.

8. Broad API Integration

• Available only in the Responses API, giving you:
  • Streaming
  • Structured outputs
  • Function calling
• Allows creation of interactive coding tools and agent workflows with tight model control.

1. Advanced reasoning capability

• Designed for multi-step thinking across text, code, and visual inputs.
• Excels at math, science, logic puzzles, and complex analytical workflows.

2. Strong performance across domains

• Highly capable in technical writing, data analysis, and structured problem-solving.
• Useful for research, engineering tasks, and intricate instruction-following.

3. Visual reasoning support

• Accepts image inputs, enabling tasks such as diagram analysis, chart interpretation, and visual logic assessments.

4. High output capacity

• Up to 100,000 output tokens, supporting long-form content, technical breakdowns, and multi-part solutions.

5. Excellent instruction following

• Produces detailed, step-by-step responses for tasks requiring precision and clarity.
• Ideal for educational explanations, system design reasoning, and code walkthroughs.

6. Large 200K context window

• Handles long documents, multi-file reasoning, or extended conversations with minimal loss of context.

7. Broad API support

• Works with Chat Completions, Responses, Realtime, Assistants, Batch, Embeddings, Image Generation, and more.
• Supports streaming and function calling for advanced workflows.

8. Positioned as a legacy reasoning model

• Remains extremely capable but formally succeeded by GPT-5, which offers stronger reasoning and performance.