# Conductor vs OpenAI Codex (slim)

> OpenAI Codex scores 73.5 (BB) to Conductor's 41.3 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/conductor-vs-openai-codex.md (~6,250 tokens) · this version ~2,680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/conductor-vs-openai-codex.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/conductor-vs-openai-codex
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

OpenAI Codex scores 73.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Conductor's 41.3 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Conductor: E 41.3, rank #1285 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/conductor.min.md
- OpenAI Codex: BB 73.5, rank #107 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-codex.min.md
- Conductor, good for Existing Conductor users planning their move before Cloud closes on 20 November 2026 and the local app winds down in early 2027.
- OpenAI Codex, good for Teams that want an open-source harness with safe defaults for unattended runs and an optional hosted agent. Ahead on Reliability, 55 against 25; Schema & documentation, 90 against 60; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 55; Security & auth, 82 against 45; Payments & pricing, 60 against 0; Maintenance & community, 87 against 58; Transparency & trust, 85 against 53. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | Conductor | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 25 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 60 | 90 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 55 | 80 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 45 | 82 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 0 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 58 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 53 | 85 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Conductor | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Conductor (joining Meta) | OpenAI |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| Licence | Proprietary. A closed-source Mac app and hosted Conductor Cloud under Conductor's terms | Apache-2.0 (Codex CLI, its Rust crates and the TypeScript and Python SDKs). Codex cloud is a hosted service under OpenAI's terms |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 126k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, OpenAI Codex +60: Conductor 0 (No new sign-ups since 4 November, free users can't upgrade, and no price is shown. No protocol, no published price, no open free tier, no onboarding (0).); OpenAI Codex 60 (Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices and API token prices are public without a login, and the pricing page gives per-plan message ranges, re-read on 1 November (20). ChatGPT Free and Go include Codex, and Free needs no card (20). `--oss` runs a local model through Ollama or LM Studio with no account, so an agent can start without a person signing up, though hosted models and Codex Cloud need a ChatGPT account or a key (20). 0 + 20 + 20 + 20 = 60.)
- Security & auth, OpenAI Codex +37: Conductor 45 (Closed app. Telemetry and data handling weren't read beyond the transition notice (10 of 30). A security and permissions page (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found (5). No audit log found (5). SOC 2 Type II report at trust.conductor.build (15 of 20). 10 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 15 = 45.); OpenAI Codex 82 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. Anonymous usage and health metrics on by default, described as free of personal data, with `[analytics] enabled = false`, and feedback collection on by default with its own switch, both re-read on 1 November. Credentials are a ChatGPT login or an API key (20). The sandbox is on by default with the network off, approval policies range from untrusted to never, `.git`, `.agents` and `.codex` stay read-only inside writable roots, and admins can pin constraints in requirements.toml (19). Network off by default locally. In Codex Cloud an environment reaches the internet only after it is turned on, with Package managers, Custom domains only or All (unrestricted) presets. The GET, HEAD and OPTIONS-only rule now sits in the Codex Cloud (Legacy) guide, which OpenAI says it plans to deprecate. The docs keep a worked example of prompt-injection exfiltration (14). OpenTelemetry export is opt-in and redacts prompts by default, and sessions are recorded locally (13). Bugcrowd programme, SECURITY.md and a signed security.txt on openai.com, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November. As on the openai-api and openai-agents-sdk listings, that security.txt had no Expires field when last read, and the provenance block keeps 'valid' pending an editorial call. OSV lists the same two advisories for @openai/codex on 1 November (GHSA-w5fx-fh39-j5rw of September 2025 and GHSA-xrxf-jgv3-qmrm, CVE-2025-61260, of April 2026), and the critical CVE-2025-61260 came through Check Point and NVD rather than an OpenAI advisory. 0.165.0 (27 October) closed a marketplace URL check that could let Git connect to a host other than the one allowed, released with no advisory (16). SOC 2 isn't scored on the framework reading. 20 + 19 + 14 + 13 + 16 = 82.)
- Transparency & trust, OpenAI Codex +32: Conductor 53 (Closed service with terms and privacy pages (15). The transition notice says when Cloud data deletion begins (20 November) and that all user data is deleted when the app shuts down in early 2027 (20 of 30). Dated shutdown notice (15 of 20). SOC 2 report on a trust portal, subprocessors not read (10 of 20). 15 + 20 + 15 + 10 = 60.); OpenAI Codex 85 (Apache-2.0 for the CLI and SDKs (30). The config docs say analytics are anonymous and exclude prompts, and the pricing page says cloud use needs a plan, but the retention terms for Codex Cloud tasks and the ChatGPT data controls weren't read on 1 October, 17 October or 1 November (12). The changelog at learn.chatgpt.com dates model retirements ahead of time with replacements (GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.4 mini announced on 31 July for 31 August, GPT-5.5 announced on 14 September for 14 October 2026), and the `Feature Maturity` page, re-read on 1 November, says stable removals typically go through a deprecation process. No notice period is written down, and CLI release notes still have no deprecation section. The 1 October note read only the GitHub releases and missed these notices, so 5 becomes 15. Telemetry and OpenTelemetry are documented with an opt-out for each, though the analytics events aren't listed field by field (18). 30 + 12 + 15 + 18 = 75.)
- Reliability, OpenAI Codex +30: Conductor 25 (Read as local software that is winding down. Installed from Conductor's own download, which stopped taking new users on 4 November 2026 (10). Closed source, so no public CI or issue tracker (0, 0). A dated changelog, newest 0.93.0 on 4 November (15). Version 0.93 (0). 10 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 25.); OpenAI Codex 55 (Local-package reading. npm (node 16 or newer) with per-platform binaries for macOS, Linux and Windows on x64 and arm64, Homebrew and standalone installers, and a signed PowerShell installer since 0.162.0, per the 17 October check, with 0.166.0 on 29 October the newest tag (20). Public CI, with rust-ci and a blocking-ci workflow that runs on every push to main, and the 10 rust-ci runs on main that our reader showed all passed, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November as GitHub's pages answered 403 (20). Over 5,000 open issues and 169 open pull requests, labelled by surface and platform, with crash and regression reports among recent ones, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (10). 0.x minors every few days, and release notes for 0.164.0 to 0.166.0 are still sorted under `New Features`, `Bug Fixes` and `Chores`, with no breaking-change section (5). 0.166.0, pre-1.0 (0). 20 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 0 = 55. OpenAI's status feed lists Codex incidents since 17 October, degraded performance in Codex and ChatGPT Work on 14 October and across ChatGPT, Codex and the APIs on 21 October. The local-package reading doesn't score them.)
- Schema & documentation, OpenAI Codex +30: Conductor 60 (Harness reading. Docs for workspaces, review and merge, a Conductor API reference page linked from the docs (not read), and security and permissions pages (60).); OpenAI Codex 90 (Framework reading. A JSON Schema for config.toml in the repository (codex-rs/core/config.schema.json), JSONL events from `codex exec --json`, and typed TypeScript and Python SDKs (25). llms.txt at learn.chatgpt.com with a Markdown twin for every page, re-read on 1 November (10). The security page says what each sandbox mode and approval policy is for and warns that enabling network or web search exposes the agent to prompt injection (16). Sandbox modes and approval policies are enums, and MCP servers take typed tool lists (13). Examples throughout, and `--output-schema` validates the final message. The non-interactive page names the event types, `turn.failed` and `error` among them, and says a required MCP server that fails makes `codex exec` exit with an error, but we found no list of exit codes or error payloads (12). Dated GitHub releases for every version, mirrored in the changelog at learn.chatgpt.com, which runs to 0.166.0 on 29 October (14). 25 + 10 + 16 + 13 + 12 + 14 = 90.)
- Maintenance & community, OpenAI Codex +29: Conductor 58 (0.93.0 on 4 November 2026 (30). Several dated releases in 90 days, per the changelog index (20). Discord, a subreddit and email for support (8). Closed app, no package or CI to read (0). 30 + 20 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 58. The local app gets new models and critical fixes only until early 2027.); OpenAI Codex 87 (0.166.0 on 29 October 2026 (30). 36 stable release tags between 5 August and 29 October, from 0.146.1 to 0.166.0 (20). Issues are labelled by surface, platform and cause, but over 5,000 stay open and a workflow closes stale contributor pull requests, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (12). TypeScript and Python SDKs are in the same repository and built in CI (15). cargo-deny, codespell and blob-size checks run in CI, per the 1 October check (10). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 10 = 87.)