OpenAI’s Codex CLI Wins Developer Favor Over Anthropic’s Claude Code Amid Licensing Drama
In the growing competition between two new “agentic” coding tools — Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex CLI — OpenAI appears to be winning over more developers. A key reason? Anthropic’s aggressive takedown actions against a developer trying to reverse-engineer Claude Code, which operates under a far more restrictive license than Codex CLI.
Both tools aim to do the same thing: give developers access to powerful cloud-based AI models to assist with coding tasks. Released just months apart, Claude Code and Codex CLI represent Anthropic and OpenAI’s respective bids to capture critical developer mindshare.
However, their licensing strategies are very different. Codex CLI is open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 license, permitting broad distribution and commercial use. Claude Code, by contrast, is locked under Anthropic’s commercial license, which significantly limits modification without explicit approval.
To further complicate matters, Anthropic obfuscated Claude Code’s source, making it difficult for developers to inspect or modify. When one developer managed to de-obfuscate and publish the code on GitHub, Anthropic responded swiftly with a DMCA takedown request.
The move sparked backlash across social media, where developers contrasted Anthropic’s restrictive approach with OpenAI’s more collaborative stance. In just a week following Codex CLI’s launch, OpenAI has already merged dozens of community contributions into the project — including a notable update allowing Codex CLI to work with AI models from rival providers like Anthropic itself.
Anthropic has not issued any public comment. To be fair, Claude Code remains in beta — and quite buggy — so it’s possible the company will reconsider its licensing in the future. Companies often obfuscate early-stage code for security reasons, among others.
Still, the optics are significant. OpenAI, which has been criticized lately for pivoting away from open source toward more closed-off products, is scoring an unexpected PR win. In fact, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently admitted the company may have been on the “wrong side of history” when it comes to open source — suggesting a possible shift in strategy.
