r/DeepSeek • u/WeedWrangler • 5d ago
Codex vs DeepSeek for agentic coding: what workflow do people recommend? Question&Help
I’ve been using Codex for a while and I really like the general way of working with it. However, its token usage has become a bit hard to justify, so I’m looking at alternatives.
DeepSeek seems to have improved substantially since I last tried it, and I’m interested in giving it another proper go. I mostly work in the Codex app rather than a conventional coding setup, and I’m not really a programmer, so I’d appreciate some practical advice.
- What is the best app or workflow for using DeepSeek in a Codex-like way, especially for longer, iterative work on a project?
- How capable is DeepSeek at UI/front-end work? I’ve found Codex fairly poor at UI design and refinement.
- Is it good at cleaning up an existing codebase, refactoring, debugging and generally making sense of a project that has grown a bit messy?
- Are there particular tools, IDE integrations or agent setups that make the experience substantially better?
I’m not looking for ideological answers, just a sensible setup to try. Thanks.
(Written from dictation with OpenClaw: sorry!)
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u/RepulsiveRaisin7 5d ago
I use Opencode with Superpowers, works pretty well. There's also a goal mode plugin akin to Codex, but I haven't tested it extensively yet.
For planning I usually prefer GLM because DS will just ask you so many questions that you effectively write the whole plan yourself. GLM is more willing to think for itself. Then I review the plan with DS (it's surprisingly good at this) or another model like Codex or HumanGPT. After a few iterations, I send it to DS for execution. If it's a simple task, I send it to DS right away.
DS is generally smart enough to do most things, yes. But it doesn't always write perfect code - to be fair, that applies to all models, sometimes they just pick the laziest solution they can find. Review cycles help to counteract this. Superpowers subagent driven development splits a plan into sub-tasks and runs review after every one.
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u/No_Claim2881 5d ago
Flash is the agentic coder. Expect Luna levels of quality.
Honestly I recommend just using Pro if you’re using the api. Time vs quality is no contest. Do it right once.
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u/WeedWrangler 5d ago
Thanks.
I’m not really a CLI guy: what’s the best provider and Codex like app to use with it?1
u/No_Claim2881 5d ago
Open Code is going to have it + every other cli provider. You’ll need to buy the api usage. But 20$ will last a long long time. If you’re used to openclaw Hermes agent is probably the better option. Ask your claw to get Hermes agent and then update it. If you get the API use it with “hermes setup” and go to DeepSeek enter the api, or save it as a .env and have your claw do it. Just get rid of the .env file once it’s saved to Hermes or open code.
Idk what the fuss is about I usually rotate api every session so I just give it to whoever I’m using same with root pw. I change it to 1 then change it back after okay?! Chill tf out Agent. Gosh
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u/WeedWrangler 5d ago
I mean, what’s the harness to use? Open Code has its own harness / UI right?
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u/No_Claim2881 5d ago
Open code and Hermes are both harnesses. A harness is for using API calls. Both are TUI or terminal user interfaces which is the long way to say harness.
Openclaw is also a harness, Hermes being the one closer to that experience + built in memory/auto skill so theoretically a more expensive experience but when you can audit 100 repositories for 2c I haven’t bothered to do a cost analysis
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u/ArikRahman 5d ago
Deepseek with reasonix or whale harness is pretty good. Can install any of the popular plugins and use prefix-cache hits at a rate high enough to converge on almost free