The deciding difference is operational: OpenCode 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.
Open-source terminal coding agent, provider-agnostic.
| Codex CLI | OpenCode | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source | Open source |
| Pricing | paid | open source |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes |
| Languages | Any language | Any language |
| Install | npm install -g @openai/codex | npm install -g opencode-ai |
| Keys required | OPENAI_API_KEY | None |
The deciding difference is operational: OpenCode 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. OpenCode: Open-source terminal coding agent, provider-agnostic.
Codex CLI is a hosted service only. OpenCode can run on your own infrastructure.
Codex CLI is open source (paid). OpenCode 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-opencode