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134: OpenAI's Free Codex App, Building RSS Reader Live, Claude Code vs Codex Showdown
Get AI-Ready with Kyle’s 5-Day Challenge: https://aiwithkyle.com/join
Kyle’s AI Canon — Curated list of AI learning essentials: https://aiwithkyle.com/ai-canon
Subscribe and turn on notifications to catch the next live stream: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChlLglbHDASnoGkbjDeHnQg
This video is from the ‘AI with Kyle Live Stream’
First aired: 3 February 2026
Summary: OpenAI dropped their Codex desktop app for Mac yesterday, and the big news is that it's now available for free users—not just the paid crowd. They've also doubled the rate limits for a couple of months, which is pretty generous. I decided to take it for a proper test drive by building an RSS reader live on stream, inspired by Andrej Karpathy's recent tweet about getting back to RSS feeds and away from the endless slop on social media. The whole thing took less than an hour, and honestly, it worked pretty well. You can just install the app and start building without needing to mess around with GitHub straight away, which makes it far more accessible than something like Claude Code.
The verdict? It's solid. Not quite as polished as Claude Code in my view—it's slower, there's no preview panel, and you'll still need to be comfortable with the terminal for some bits. But for free access to AI coding, it's pretty remarkable. If you've been curious about vibe coding but didn't want to shell out £100-200 a month for Claude Code, this is your moment. The app has automations and skills (though skills are a bit broken at the moment), and you can run multiple projects in parallel. I'm going to keep building out my RSS reader in Codex as an experiment, mainly because it's free and I want to see how far it can go.
Watch full edited live stream: https://youtu.be/n60A8BlDzMc
—— Time Stamps ——
00:00 Intro: OpenAI Codex Desktop App Released for macOS
00:40 Free Vibe Coding: Codex vs Google Anti-Gravity
01:12 Rate Limits Doubled for All Paid Plans Until April
02:06 Andrej Karpathy Says Bring Back RSS Feeds
03:12 Codex vs Claude Code: Which AI Coding Tool Wins?
03:28 Codex Features: Parallel Agents & Background Automations
04:50 OpenAI Town Hall: Everyone Asking for Clawd Bot
05:20 ChatGPT Has 900 Million Users
05:29 Codex App Interface Walkthrough
05:44 GitHub Integration for Version Control
06:40 Export to Cursor, Windsurf, Anti-Gravity & Xcode
08:00 Automations & Skills Marketplace
08:55 Model Selection: Codex Medium, High & Extra High
09:25 Planning the RSS Reader Project
11:32 Designing Tinder-Style Swipe Interface
16:39 Building the Proof of Concept
19:19 Terminal Barrier: Why Beginners Struggle with Vibe Coding
20:44 Live Demo: Swiping Interface Works
23:42 UX Refinements & Fixing Tinder Swipe Direction
31:27 Debugging Next.js Errors with Codex
32:47 Pulling Real RSS Data from Ethan Mollick's Substack
34:02 It Works! Full App Demo Reveal
35:28 Built a Working App in Under an Hour
35:57 Codex Pros: Free Access & Good Results
36:25 Codex Cons: No Preview Panel & Slow Speed
38:12 How to Download and Start Using Codex
38:53 Free Newsletter & Community Resources
39:24 Codex Guide Coming to Newsletter
39:36 Vibe Coding Accelerator Announcement
40:15 Outro
—— More Useful Resources ——
Find everything else at https://aiwithkyle.com/
View all episodes
By Kyle BalmerGet AI-Ready with Kyle’s 5-Day Challenge: https://aiwithkyle.com/join
Kyle’s AI Canon — Curated list of AI learning essentials: https://aiwithkyle.com/ai-canon
Subscribe and turn on notifications to catch the next live stream: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChlLglbHDASnoGkbjDeHnQg
This video is from the ‘AI with Kyle Live Stream’
First aired: 3 February 2026
Summary: OpenAI dropped their Codex desktop app for Mac yesterday, and the big news is that it's now available for free users—not just the paid crowd. They've also doubled the rate limits for a couple of months, which is pretty generous. I decided to take it for a proper test drive by building an RSS reader live on stream, inspired by Andrej Karpathy's recent tweet about getting back to RSS feeds and away from the endless slop on social media. The whole thing took less than an hour, and honestly, it worked pretty well. You can just install the app and start building without needing to mess around with GitHub straight away, which makes it far more accessible than something like Claude Code.
The verdict? It's solid. Not quite as polished as Claude Code in my view—it's slower, there's no preview panel, and you'll still need to be comfortable with the terminal for some bits. But for free access to AI coding, it's pretty remarkable. If you've been curious about vibe coding but didn't want to shell out £100-200 a month for Claude Code, this is your moment. The app has automations and skills (though skills are a bit broken at the moment), and you can run multiple projects in parallel. I'm going to keep building out my RSS reader in Codex as an experiment, mainly because it's free and I want to see how far it can go.
Watch full edited live stream: https://youtu.be/n60A8BlDzMc
—— Time Stamps ——
00:00 Intro: OpenAI Codex Desktop App Released for macOS
00:40 Free Vibe Coding: Codex vs Google Anti-Gravity
01:12 Rate Limits Doubled for All Paid Plans Until April
02:06 Andrej Karpathy Says Bring Back RSS Feeds
03:12 Codex vs Claude Code: Which AI Coding Tool Wins?
03:28 Codex Features: Parallel Agents & Background Automations
04:50 OpenAI Town Hall: Everyone Asking for Clawd Bot
05:20 ChatGPT Has 900 Million Users
05:29 Codex App Interface Walkthrough
05:44 GitHub Integration for Version Control
06:40 Export to Cursor, Windsurf, Anti-Gravity & Xcode
08:00 Automations & Skills Marketplace
08:55 Model Selection: Codex Medium, High & Extra High
09:25 Planning the RSS Reader Project
11:32 Designing Tinder-Style Swipe Interface
16:39 Building the Proof of Concept
19:19 Terminal Barrier: Why Beginners Struggle with Vibe Coding
20:44 Live Demo: Swiping Interface Works
23:42 UX Refinements & Fixing Tinder Swipe Direction
31:27 Debugging Next.js Errors with Codex
32:47 Pulling Real RSS Data from Ethan Mollick's Substack
34:02 It Works! Full App Demo Reveal
35:28 Built a Working App in Under an Hour
35:57 Codex Pros: Free Access & Good Results
36:25 Codex Cons: No Preview Panel & Slow Speed
38:12 How to Download and Start Using Codex
38:53 Free Newsletter & Community Resources
39:24 Codex Guide Coming to Newsletter
39:36 Vibe Coding Accelerator Announcement
40:15 Outro
—— More Useful Resources ——
Find everything else at https://aiwithkyle.com/