# Droid CLI vs OpenAI Codex (slim)

> OpenAI Codex scores 73 (BB) to Droid CLI's 59.1 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-openai-codex.md (~2,600 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-openai-codex.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-openai-codex
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

OpenAI Codex scores 73 (BB) on agent readiness against Droid CLI's 59.1 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Droid CLI: C 59.1, rank #560 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/droid-cli.min.md
- OpenAI Codex: BB 73, rank #95 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-codex.min.md
- Droid CLI, good for Teams that want a terminal coding agent with tiered autonomy, command rules and an optional sandbox, and that will pay for a Factory plan.
- 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 49; Schema & documentation, 90 against 79; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 72; Security & auth, 82 against 63; Payments & pricing, 60 against 10; Maintenance & community, 87 against 79; Transparency & trust, 79 against 64. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | Droid CLI | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 49 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 79 | 90 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 72 | 80 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 63 | 82 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 10 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 79 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Droid CLI | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Factory | OpenAI |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Factory's Terms and Conditions. The `droid` npm package is marked `UNLICENSED` and the public repository holds documentation only. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 (Codex CLI, its Rust crates and the TypeScript and Python SDKs). Codex cloud is a hosted service under OpenAI's terms |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-14 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-20 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 49 stars, 7.8k npm/wk | 126k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |