GPT-5
OpenAI's GPT-5 family of large language models, available through ChatGPT, Codex and the API.
Liked for capable coding work and close instruction following1234, with several commenters switching from Claude and citing roomier usage limits and good token efficiency.5678 The most common complaint is that 5.6 releases burn more tokens than 5.591011, and that the models stop early, give up or drift on long tasks.12131415
Why people recommend it
Coding ability · 3
Commenters find it writes clean, reliable code and compares well with Claude and Composer.
“It writes very nice, clean code with almost no comments.”
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Cost and limits · 3
Users report good cost for performance, token efficiency and rarely hitting subscription limits.
“the GPT 5.6 family does a good job in terms of cost for performance”
“the usage and quality out of gpt 5.6 is on par, if not better in token usage.”
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“With gpt 5.5 I don't think I'm working differently but haven't felt the need to check anything because I think I've hit my limit... once?”
Instruction following · 3
Praised for doing what it is told and adhering to tasks and tool instructions.
“Gpt 5.6, it understands me perfectly and is able to always do what i tell it to the point”
“GPT-5.4 (which remains the best model by any lab I ever tested for task adherence”
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Writing style · 3
Commenters like its direct communication and technical writing, especially with plain-English prompts.
“GPT-5.6 so far has been a significantly better technical writer in my opinion, and it's much faster in conversations.”
“The communication is more direct too with GPT5.6 family of LLM.”
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“With GPT-5.6 I get reasonable results with "use natural, plain English".”
Long context · 2
Some users notice no quality loss near context limits or after compaction.
“I use GLM5.2 and gpt-5.5 and 5.6 and never noticed any quality degradation near the limits of the context or due to compaction.”
“I always let GPT 5.5/5.6 sol reach compatction.”
Thoroughness · 2
Trusted for thorough work such as reverse engineering and porting legacy software.
“I trust GPT models the most for reverse engineering, they're very thorough.”
“Fable and GPT-5.6 chewed through the compiler warnings, dependency hell, and portability bugs largely on their own.”
Caveats and dissent
Stops early · 3
Models sometimes give up, declare tasks done prematurely or drift on long-running work.
“switching back to gpt-5.5 for "real work"”
“they often give up saying it can't be done, or cheat by modifying the tests”
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“GPT-5.5 simply did not stay on track post compaction”
Token hunger · 3
GPT-5.6 is reported to use more tokens than 5.5 for similar or slightly worse results.
“5.6 seems to use too many tokens to do the same or slightly inferior job”
“It definitely feels like subscription limits have dropped since GPT-5.6 came out.”
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“whereas I was able to work ~80 hours/week with 5.5 High”
Refusals · 2
Some users hit refusals on security scanning and certain tool-building tasks.
“gpt-5.6, gemini pro, and opus all rejected to follow.”
“like gpt-5.5 not willing to build a downloading tool for Annas Archive”
Perceived degradation · 2
A few commenters feel quality dropped over time or after release.
“i have the feeling GPT5.4 is not as good as before”
“I think this happened around Opus 4.5 or 4.5 and the same for GPT 5.4.”
Knowledge cutoff · 2
Early GPT-5 struggled with newer tooling like uv and with R code.
“it consistently ran the wrong commands or used pip despite my instructions within AGENTS.md”
Often compared with
3 moved from Claude Opus to GPT-5
8 moved from Claude to GPT-5
1 moved from GPT-5 to Claude
2 moved from Claude Fable to GPT-5
1 moved from GPT-5 to Claude Fable
2 moved from GPT-5 to Claude Sonnet
1 moved from GPT-5 to Gemini
2 moved from Claude Code to GPT-5
1 moved from GPT-5 to DeepSeek
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
Threads where it came up
- GPT-5.6 16 mentions
- Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026) 5 mentions
- GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT 4 mentions
- Grok 4.5 3 mentions
- Previewing GPT‑5.6 Sol: a next-generation model 3 mentions
- Claude Fable 5 3 mentions
Also written as GPT 5.5, GPT-5.6, GPT-5.4, GPT-5. Data: gpt-5.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 46
“GPT 5.5 on Medium is all I use lately, I don't understand why anyone would pay drastically more for slightly more”
“Once on Codex with GPT-5.6.”
“Opus 4.8 was usable, but the GPT 5.x series was better.”
“GPT4 and GPT5 were more than enough supplementation”
“It writes very nice, clean code with almost no comments.”
“It was just as good as 5.5 which was my previous default.”
“GPT-5.6 Sol 3.5 s”
“My recent experiences with GPT-5.6 were also very positive in this regard.”
“Gpt 5.6, it understands me perfectly and is able to always do what i tell it to the point”
“I used GPT-5.5, IIRC, which was capable of doing the math I needed correctly, but only after a lot of tries”
“I think this happened around Opus 4.5 or 4.5 and the same for GPT 5.4.”
“they often give up saying it can't be done, or cheat by modifying the tests”
“At work I use Codex CLI with GPT 5.4 - it hits a sweet spot”
“it consistently ran the wrong commands or used pip despite my instructions within AGENTS.md”
“Compare Astra[0] with GPT 5.4[1] which was OpenAI's state of the art just six months ago.”
“GPT-5.4 (which remains the best model by any lab I ever tested for task adherence”
“GPT-5.5 simply did not stay on track post compaction”
“With the skill installed GPT 5.6 usually automatically uses it”
“whereas I was able to work ~80 hours/week with 5.5 High”
“gemini-2.5-pro, claude-opus-4.8, gpt-5.1, llama-3.3-70b”
“the usage and quality out of gpt 5.6 is on par, if not better in token usage.”
“about 10x faster than just using Opus 5 or GPT 5.6 and about 90% is good”
“With GPT-5.6 I get reasonable results with "use natural, plain English".”
“Finally switched to GPT 5.6 Sol and Terra, and it's so much better.”
“I find 5.5 models more than enough for most tasks and have shifted back to codex”
“the coding with R language was terrible”
“The communication is more direct too with GPT5.6 family of LLM.”
“I switched from claude to gpt when 5.6 came out for the same reasons.”
“GPT 5.5 did a similar task in about 20 minutes.”
“I've not caught it with the more recent (Opus 4.5+, Fable 5, GOT 5.5/5.6) models.”
“Both GPT 5.5 and 5.6 are quite capable”
“Both GPT 5.5 and 5.6 are quite capable”
“had to switch to GPT 5.5 when even Opus started refusing security work”
“it's definitely powerful but I honestly think I'll go back to Gemini”
“Looks like it was running Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.4.”
“GPT-5.6 so far has been a significantly better technical writer in my opinion, and it's much faster in conversations.”
“It definitely feels like subscription limits have dropped since GPT-5.6 came out.”
“stop four long-running Codex sessions that ran on 5.6-sol and switched to 5.5”
“if deepseek can’t figure something out after a few goes I switch to GTP 5.5 or 5.6”
“I've been using this with GPT 5.5 and now 5.6 for a few months and running it a few times a week with no issue.”
“switching back to gpt-5.5 for "real work"”
“5.6 seems to use too many tokens to do the same or slightly inferior job”
“GPT 5.4/5.5 would prefer them.”
“the GPT 5.6 family does a good job in terms of cost for performance”
“GPT won hands down.”
“With gpt 5.5 I don't think I'm working differently but haven't felt the need to check anything because I think I've hit my limit... once?”