The deciding difference is operational: Goose can run on infrastructure you control, Codex CLI cannot. If that constraint is real for you, it settles the choice before anything else is considered.
OpenAI's terminal coding agent.
Block's open-source on-machine agent with an extension system.
| Codex CLI | Goose | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source | Open source |
| Pricing | paid | open source |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes |
| Languages | Any language | Any language |
| Install | npm install -g @openai/codex | brew install block-goose-cli |
| Keys required | OPENAI_API_KEY | None |
The deciding difference is operational: Goose can run on infrastructure you control, Codex CLI cannot. If that constraint is real for you, it settles the choice before anything else is considered. Codex CLI: OpenAI's terminal coding agent. Goose: Block's open-source on-machine agent with an extension system.
Codex CLI is a hosted service only. Goose can run on your own infrastructure.
Codex CLI is open source (paid). Goose is open source (open source).
Every page here answers to Accept: text/markdown and returns the same content at roughly a tenth the tokens. No separate site, no toggle — same URL.
curl -s -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://newagent.build/compare/codex-cli-vs-goose