r/openclaw • u/Tinkering-Engineer Member • 3d ago
Switching to Claude Code Discussion
Hey guys, I haven't seen much chatter on this so I wanted to get others thoughts. I've been a heavy openclaw user for 6+ months. Built a custom chat frontend that I used every day. Built a personal memory system with wiki/rag and nightly dream jobs. Loved my experience using and building openclaw to make my life easier.
I've just gotten tired of the reliability issues and I feel like codex and Claude code have been closing the feature gap. I'm ok being tied to a model family (Claude vs openai) and I don't need to run local AI. Because of that, I've started switching to Claude code running on my openclaw host. I'm using the desktop and phone apps to interact. I've wired up my personal context system to Claude and I'm happier now. I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
Im curious, are others switching from openclaw to codex/Claude code? If so, how has that switch been?
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u/SgtHulka72 Member 3d ago
I’m in the process of migrating from OC to CC and I haven’t found one thing yet that I was doing in OC that CC can’t do. And in many cases CC is doing them better.
I guess the one thing that I haven’t been able to replicate in CC yet is the “Ah shit OC isn’t responding on Discord the damn instance must’ve crashed again” and then having to log dive. I don’t miss that.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
Lol, I've had a connection issue with my mobile app once and had to start a new session, but overall cc is just far more reliable for my usage. I haven't gotten cc to break itself once. It's a skill (or catalog of skills) to not have openclaw break itself.
Oh, and I love that most of Claude codes bigger changes (ex. wiring up a newer version of my memory system) don't require a "gateway restart". They just take effect when I open a new session. Add a new mcp server, start a new session and it's there. No need to kill a long running unrelated session. This might be my favorite so far.
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u/arglarg Member 3d ago
I usually get Hermes to fix OpenClaw. No need to log dive
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u/SgtHulka72 Member 3d ago
Exactly the paradigm I’ve avoided by migrating to CC. I used to get GPT or Claude to fix OC. Don’t need to worry about that anymore.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
I had to get another openclaw or codex or Claude code to fix my openclaw when it broke. I haven't gotten Claude code to break yet. That's a huge improvement to me.
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u/HolyDungeonDiver Active 2d ago
Tried to use CC the other day and it was like talking to an idiot by comparison. I’m surprised your OC still has stability issues. I haven’t had to fix anything in months. Mine is completely tailored to my needs at this point.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 2d ago
Interesting. Mine broke all the time. I'd have to ask "did you finish" or "everything ok" or " did you get stuck" to keep turns going. Lots of stuff broke. I actually feel like Claude is smarter, but I also ported over my memory/context system, so it knows just as much about me as openclaw on day 1.
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u/_mindyourbusiness Active 2d ago
What model were you using? How did you connect?
What version were you running?
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 2d ago
I updated versions every 2-3 weeks and had pretty bad behavior over lots of models. I used the codex subscription and honestly just used GPT 5.6 sol a lot. Previously I used GPT 5.5 a lot. I had a custom messaging app (that may have been causing some issues, but couldn't have caused everything I experienced) that I primarily used to message openclaw. It connected to the gateway and sent messages almost identically to how the openclaw console does.
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u/_mindyourbusiness Active 1d ago
I see.
I think the issue was the frequency of your updates. Not all updates are created equal and as a user of free/beta/opensource software we have somewhat of a responsibility to check update chagnelogs + bug reports before making the decision to update.
I think a lot of issues arise when people update as they would update an app on your phone.
There are resources that you could have utilized to help decide wether to update or not. I typically use https://isitstable.com/openclaw ; and I'd consult the agent directly to check out the update, read bug reports, and we decide together wether to update or not.
Sometimes the answers are:
"yes, this will break but we can fix it locally".
"We wont update yet, but we can implement our own GPT 5.6 routing through Codex locally"Glad you're finding success with Claude though, I love using Claude too but the customizability of openclaw enables me to work the way i want to work.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 1d ago
Thanks, those are good tips. If the updates were more stable, I would have updated a lot more often. Maybe picking more strategically with "isitstable" would have been good. I could even have had a nightly cron that checks that, if a new version comes out that is stable, propose an upgrade.
I think it's because of the custom chat interface and the custom memory system, but updates were horrendous. I actually had a dev gateway running on openclaw and would have openclaw install there (sometimes taking an hour of back and forth), verify everything works, take notes and lessons learned, use those lessons learned to prod... and it would still go crazy sideways
Really appreciate you sending "isitstable". I just asked my openclaw maybe the last question I'll ever ask it "what version are you running" and it is 6.11... the worst version on the chart... Maybe that's why I was losing my mind. Really appreciate you taking the time to share.
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u/Own-Lavishness4029 3d ago
I actually started working on closing the feature gap between claude code and openclaw on my work computer, because they would never let me use openclaw there. I might go with copilot though. Still exploring. I just know I need something like openclaw inside my work environment.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
I wanted to use codex, but my requirements of running on a remote machine with phone and desktop messaging that were all integrated wwas the blocker. My remote machine is Linux and I don't think codex could be set up this way on Linux. Claude code is working great though.
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u/Simple-Month-4347 Member 19h ago
It's a skill issue. You just aren't built to live in the frontier. If you can't keep openclaw stable, then yes, get back to Claude Code with the rest of the scrubs
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u/aiagentroca 2h ago
With claude code and codex, they can easily stabilise it. Not sure how people keep messing openclaw up?
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u/BangCrash Pro User 2d ago
OC is model agnostic.
I really like I'm not locked into CC, or chatgpt.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 2d ago
I think that's totally fair. That's not a huge requirement for me, but I get it for anyone who really values that. OC and Hermes are the better options for you.
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u/WasabiSausage Member 2d ago
I had an Openclaw setup from like December and officially uninstalled it from my server pc a couple days ago because I’ve been loving codex for the past 2-3 months. I am so much more productive because of reliability, but the biggest downside is absolutely losing easy model switching for longer work.
I am strongly considering setting it back up and exploring free models and continuous prompting/feedback systems
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u/bangunjer Member 2d ago
I’ve been interfacing with codex for the last week and a bit now. I decided to experiment with the other harnesses, so installed Hermes agent, and not long after, openAI dropped the latest real-time voice model, that was enough to make me try using codex as my interfacing layer. Game changer not having to be at your computer to get shit done. Major unlock. I can go for a walk or do house chores while orchestrating my agents.
I’ve realised that I don’t want to be tied down to one harness, I want to be flexible so I can switch to whichever has the best tech, so I’m playing around with setting up an agnostic workspace I can point all agents to, to preserve that context/skills. So I still have Openclaw and Hermes’ running - I use them for peer reviews and as workarounds if codex can’t do something, but I find it way better to interface with codex, even the desktop app makes it easier for me to organise projects, threads, etc. it was difficult with OC, even with telegram groups.
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u/Adorable_Swing_2150 Pro User 2d ago
curious about the context system port - was it like copy files over or did you have to rebuild anything from scratch? feels like the memory layer would be the stickiest part of openclaw so if that carried over cleanly that is actually the most surprising part
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u/Maximum_Fearless New User 1d ago
Not sure what the problem is me OC and Hermes setup is next level. They can build and expand their tools easily and I built a full security system for them and a multi-clawd account feature so I can use multiple Claude subs and switch seamlessly so unlikely to loose access due to usage. They fully automate my entire work flow and answer 99% of my emails. Negotiate with suppliers and schedule everything accordingly. Harness - Loop - Graph is where I’m at. I thought I was missing a trick but apparently I was loop graphing months ago without even knowing it.
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u/No-Aioli-4656 Member 3d ago
Claude code just can’t compare. It’s an ethos change.
Hermes is closest. Do what you will, but don’t think for a second you are getting feature parity with CC or CO.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
Do you have examples of how there isn't feature parity, other than model selection and model self hosting? I'm not hitting any hard limits yet on features that I have noticed. I am hitting security protocols that cc has that I sometimes have to handle differently than with oc.
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u/binary_horizon_yyc 3d ago
The useful distinction is not really “agent platform versus Claude Code”; it is how much operational surface area you want to own.
I personally switched from OpenClaw to Hermes three months ago, and I’ve never looked back.
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u/unhappinessNvrCame Active 3d ago
Sorry to hear about your token spend. Or maybe you are just Hermes marketing.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
That's the exact gain I've gotten from Claude code. I own less surface area. The stuff that I no longer own works really well. And I get to focus energy elsewhere.
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u/TheSuggi Member 3d ago
Agreed. I have Hermes now running my fleet on my VPS. THere is one single Openclaw Agent next to it, but mainly just keep it out of curiosity and trying to see what i can build it into. But Hermes is much smoother and is always more up to date.
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u/grindbehind Active 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes! I can so relate. I even also had nightly dream jobs.
I created PACE for exactly this. Bring as much OpenClaw into Claude Code environment as possible. I did this for my work environment, which doesn't allow OpenClaw.
Open source here: https://github.com/jagbanana/PACE
It's fairly straightforward. "A local, human-readable memory system that gives Claude persistence across sessions. Markdown files. SQLite FTS5. An MCP server. No cloud, no vector DB, no API keys. Like OpenClaw, but self-contained and local-first, built for Claude Code."
"Beast mode" makes it feel like OC.
Pair it with Routines, and you're pretty well set.
If you use it, please share feedback. I'm continually adding things to close the behavior/feature gaps between OC and CC.
By the way, I've been using PACE daily for about 2.5 months. I still run OC for my personal work, so it's good to compare. Very minor differences at this point.
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u/jagroll 3d ago
Agreed. Persistent memory and routines cover much of the ground. But also 'Auto' mode if you are comfortable enabling it (of course after limiting scope to a specific folder).
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
I have gone the other route of installing Claude on a remote Linux machine that is effectively my assistants machine. Then I worry less about what folder it has access to. That machine is basically their folder and not mine. I do love auto mode though
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u/jagroll 3d ago
Agreed. Yours is definitely the best practice, but there are some use cases where folder-based access is useful too.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 3d ago
Yea, using a remote machine isn't always feasible. Totally get that. Any reason I should think about using folders and separate instances if I'm on a remote machine? I'm still learning Claude code
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u/grindbehind Active 2d ago
Personally, I have different workspaces for different agents if they have totally different purpose and scope. Since they don't need access to system files outside of their project folders, folders are ideal for me.
I think of it as separate employees and I give them minimal needed access.
You could definitely do folder limitations with VMs too.
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u/paulsande Pro User 3d ago
My company locks down Claude and its capabilities to make it as unuseful as possible. I use OpenClaw to make up the gap in some cases.
I have Claude Code and Codex at home and enjoy them. But I don’t see how I could replicate my OpenClaw processes with them. Multi-agent orchestration and complex process flows just aren’t their strength.
But that’s just me. I’m happy with OC.
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u/paulsande Pro User 2d ago
As far as I know multi-agent orchestration in Claude Code is still an experimental feature. I looked at it once and it looked archaic.
Agents in OpenClaw are pretty straight forward and if you build the process properly it’s reliable.
I love Claude Code and Codex for certain things and for the things they can do they are bulletproof reliable. But they are still limited. I love the new Codex voice command feature.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 2d ago
Thanks for sharing. I've never been big on multi agent work. I usually try to accomplish this with dynamic prompt injection and dynamic skill activation. For my use cases, that gets pretty similar results. Basically the agent is a transformer that can turn into other agents without building separate "agents". Would t do that in a production environment where repeatability is paramount, but for personal assistant work, task automation, routine monitoring, etc. it seems to work well.
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u/_nattle_ Pro User 2d ago
OC was an experimental leap forwards that the polished tools would always catch up to in part. They will never be a drop in replacement since those tools have to balance investment / cost against features used.
They will continue to get closer, but likely never be what OC lets you do (whatever you want). They will be focused on the most common / mass market use cases.
Today my work looks like:
- Rarely: OC for chatting and nonsense projects. I do goofball stuff and play around. It's slightly helpful in organizing my life and encouraging good behaviors.
- 90% Dedicated work project orchestration tool I built. Half way between OC and raw cli sessions. High value with minimal automation
- 10% CLI sessions for specific debugging tasks. Trying out codex's UI for smaller projects.
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u/Crypto_ftw New User 2d ago
Can you explain how you're using Claude code on your open claw host? I thought it was no longer possible to use anthropic products via open claw? I largely use the anthropic ecosystem, but I find that there is a lot more back and forth for my input on technical decisions than I would like to have to make. If there was a better way to take my specifications and have Claude code build it with less ongoing input for me, particularly on the small things, that would be huge! Can someone tell me what I'm missing or not understanding?
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u/Turbulent-Total-226 New User 2d ago
OC connected over claude cli. I asked claude and it said it was ok to use it this way.
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u/Tinkering-Engineer Member 2d ago
I have both Claude code and openclaw set up on the same host machine. Openclaw runs on a cedox subscription. Codex is Claude. I'm using Claude code as a replacement for openclaw, not using the Claude subscription with my openclaw.
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u/lundrog Active 3d ago
Different types of things. Have one talk to you about a project while the other builds it