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title Caveman Code vs the field
description Feature-by-feature comparison of Caveman Code with Claude Code, Codex, Aider, Crush, and opencode.

Caveman Code vs Claude Code, Codex, Aider, Crush, opencode

This is the comparison table from the v2 master plan, kept current as features land. The pitch is short:

Caveman Code is the only terminal coding agent that beats Claude Code on cost, Aider on context selection, Codex on provider flexibility, and opencode on session UX — in a single MIT-licensed binary.

Capabilities

Axis Caveman Code v2 Claude Code Codex Aider Crush opencode
Token compression (3-layer Caveman Mode) yes (unique) no no repo map only no no
20+ provider OAuth (Claude Pro / ChatGPT / Copilot / Gemini) yes (unique) Anthropic only ChatGPT only env keys only subset env keys
Session branching + fork yes no fork only git only no no
Native MCP yes yes yes no yes yes
Native sandbox yes partial yes (best-in-class) no partial partial
Plan mode yes yes yes architect no yes
Repo map (PageRank) yes no no yes (best-in-class) no no
Edit-format-per-model yes no no yes (best-in-class) no no
Worktree-isolated subagents yes yes yes no no no
Daemon / multi-client yes no yes (app-server) no no yes (best-in-class)
Shadow-git checkpoints + /rollback N yes no no git only no no
Containerized parallel sessions yes no no no no no
Cost transparency (per-msg $) yes partial partial yes (best-in-class) no no
MIT open source yes closed Apache Apache FSL MIT

Where each agent shines

  • Claude Code — first-party Anthropic, opinionated UX, polished out-of-box. Best if you only use Claude and don't care about cost.
  • Codex — OpenAI's terminal agent. Excellent sandbox primitive ("sandbox-as-utility"). Single-vendor by design.
  • Aider — pioneer of repo map + edit-format-per-model. Strongest at large-codebase context selection. Less ergonomic interactive UX.
  • Crush — fast, polished TUI (Charm). Mid-session model swap. Smaller ecosystem.
  • opencode — strong daemon / multi-client story. Newer; ecosystem still maturing.
  • Cave — borrows the best of all five and adds Caveman Mode compression + 20+ provider OAuth as native, unique differentiators.

Tokens — the headline

25-task MicroBench, gpt-5.5 on both sides, xhigh reasoning (2026-05-18):

Agent Fresh tokens Pass rate Cost
Codex CLI 1,010,185 15/25 (60%) $0 (codex sub)
Caveman Code 524,703 14/25 (56%) $1.78

1.93× fewer tokens for ~equivalent pass rate. Reproduce in one command:

npx tsx research/evals/run-honest-bench.ts --tools caveman,codex

Raw CSV and per-task logs live in research/results/. Methodology spawns each CLI as a real child process — no SDK shortcuts.

Format compatibility

Caveman Code is a superset of Claude Code's authoring formats. Concretely, you can paste these directly into ~/.cave/:

  • ~/.claude/settings.json → ~/.cave/settings.json (hooks, permissions, statusLine identical schema)
  • ~/.claude/commands/*.md → ~/.cave/commands/*.md
  • ~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md → ~/.cave/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
  • ~/.claude/agents/<name>.md → ~/.cave/agents/<name>.md
  • .mcp.json (Codex / Claude Code standard) is read at the project root

See migration from Claude Code for the step-by-step.

Caveat — these comparisons evolve

Claude Code, Codex, Crush, and opencode all iterate weekly. We pin our compatibility target to Claude Code v2.1.119 schemas with a CI delta check; tracking the others is best-effort. If you spot drift, open an issue.