Claude Code vs Codex Downloads: 96,124,825 Counts Native Builds. 49,448,384 Does Not.

96,124,825. That is how many times the npm package @openai/codex was downloaded from October 11 through November 9, 2026.

@anthropic-ai/claude-code had 49,448,384 downloads in the same window. The ratio of those two counters is 1.94, a gap of 46,676,441 file requests. Stop there. Codex publishes native builds as versions of @openai/codex. Claude Code publishes native builds as other package names, and those names are not inside the 49,448,384. A reader who wants “how many people” is asking a question this API does not answer.

The November 9 install census ranks agent frameworks. It does not include a coding-agent CLI. Daily refresh of that framework set is the downloads tracker. Bookmarks for those repositories are the stars tracker. Seat prices, which this count does not touch, are Claude Code vs Codex pricing. The dated product calendar is AI coding agents in the next 30 days.

Do the Codex and Claude Code totals count the same file?

No. Codex’s 96,124,825 includes native-build versions. Claude Code’s 49,448,384 is the manifest. The eight Claude Code platform packages sum to 54,997,673, and they stay out of that manifest.

The point responses for the two manifests carried HTTP Date Wed, 11 Nov 2026 05:18:42 GMT. Each point total matched the sum of daily rows from the range endpoint. November 10 and November 11 were 0, so the window ends November 9. The week is November 3 through November 9.

On the week, Codex’s counter was 1.70 times the Claude Code manifest, 26,095,328 against 15,337,488. On November 9 it was 1.35 times, 3,876,766 against 2,880,787. The rank did not flip. The gap in the counter narrowed. It is still a gap in a counter, not a gap in users.

At 05:19:36 GMT the Codex document’s optionalDependencies pointed at names such as @openai/codex-darwin-arm64 with the alias form npm:@openai/codex@0.167.1-darwin-arm64. Those six names returned 404 at 05:20:10 GMT. They are not packages. They are versions. The version list at 05:20:05 GMT held 5,821 versions, including strings that end in -darwin-arm64 and -linux-x64. npm’s download API does not split versions. One install that fetches the manifest version and one native version increments @openai/codex twice. This note does not divide 96,124,825 by two, because the API does not show the split.

Claude Code 2.1.322, read at the same minute, depends on eight packages, not on versions of itself. The version list held 560 entries. 2.1.322 was unsuffixed. The platform totals, read at 05:20:06–05:20:08 GMT:

The sum is 54,997,673. That is 5,549,289 more than the manifest. Some jobs fetch a platform tarball without the manifest, or fetch more than one platform. linux-x64 is 37,068,954 of the 54,997,673, which is 67.4 percent. A CI runner on Linux is the bulk of the native files. darwin-arm64, the largest desktop row, is 5,982,095. Do not add the sum to 49,448,384. That addition counts one install as two and then calls it a market.

@github/copilot is the same shape as Claude Code, at a smaller scale. The manifest had 6,796,479 downloads. Six platform packages, read at 05:20:12 GMT, summed to 8,109,370, which is 1,312,891 above the manifest. The largest was @github/copilot-linux-x64 at 6,941,262. github/copilot-cli had 11,400 stars at 05:20:50 GMT. The repository is small. The file requests are not. Copilot’s directory row is the product. The star count is the CLI repo only.

Did the Claude Agent SDK out-download the CLI?

Yes, on the npm manifest. @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk had 61,334,229 downloads. The CLI manifest had 49,448,384. The SDK does not depend on the CLI.

Version 0.3.322, published 2026-11-10T01:57:38Z, had dependencies: null at 05:19:36 GMT. Its peer dependencies are zod, @anthropic-ai/sdk, and @modelcontextprotocol/sdk. The registry description is “SDK for building AI agents with Claude Code's capabilities.” There is no bin. This is the library a program embeds, not the claude command a person types. The Claude Agent SDK listing is that product. The Claude Code listing is the CLI.

The SDK’s own eight platform packages summed to 88,819,430. linux-x64 was 47,884,861. linux-x64-musl was 28,476,481. Those two rows are larger than the manifest. A matrix that installs several targets per job looks like this. The gap between the SDK manifest and the CLI manifest, 11,885,845, is not a headcount of agents in production. It is evidence that embedding the harness and running the CLI are different file requests.

On PyPI, same dates, without_mirrors: claude-agent-sdk had 34,541,167 downloads and openai-agents had 17,793,199. The npm package @openai/agents had 8,665,151. That package is the Agents SDK, version 0.21.0, published 2026-10-20, repository openai/openai-agents-js. It is not @openai/codex. The OpenAI Agents SDK listing covers the SDK. Codex is the CLI. The November 9 framework census printed these SDKs for October 10 through November 8. This note did not re-sum that window, and it does not call the difference growth.

Why do Gemini CLI’s stars look like a peer of Codex?

Because the bookmarks are close and the file requests are not. 108,765 is 80.7 percent of 134,808. The npm manifest is 58.08 times smaller.

Stars at 05:20:49 GMT on November 11: google-gemini/gemini-cli 108,765, openai/codex 134,808, anthropics/claude-code 155,223. Claude Code has the most stars of the three and the smaller npm manifest. Codex has the largest npm counter and the middle star count.

@google/gemini-cli 0.68.0, published 2026-11-10T21:22:49Z, lists node-pty, @github/keytar, and @lydell/node-pty-* as optional dependencies. Those are a terminal library and a keychain library, not extra copies of Gemini CLI under another name. This note did not query node-pty. The 1,654,972 is the CLI package. The packaging trick that inflates Codex’s counter, and the packaging split that shrinks Claude Code’s manifest, do not explain Gemini. On the numbers this pass actually fetched, Gemini CLI is a small npm package with a large star count.

cline is the same shape, sharper. 71,515 stars at 05:20:49 GMT. 350,863 npm downloads. The experimental package @cline/cli, repository cline/sdk, version 0.0.13, last published 2026-05-07, had 1,232 downloads. The CLI people install is the unscoped cline package.

Which package does the OpenCode README tell you to install?

@opencode/cli. The dev README, fetched at 05:20:06 GMT, says npm i -g @opencode/cli@latest. That package had 2,324,159 downloads. opencode-ai had 14,683,512, and it is not the command in that README.

@opencode/cli 2.2.7 was published 2026-11-10T10:33:01Z. The repository field is github.com/anomalyco/opencode. The bin is opencode. anomalyco/opencode had 225,941 stars at 05:19:38 GMT, description “The open source coding agent,” license MIT. sst/opencode returned that same repository. Those 225,941 stars are the most in this set. Paired with the package the README names, they sit on 2,324,159 npm downloads. Paired by mistake with opencode-ai, they sit on 14,683,512. Neither pairing makes OpenCode the npm leader. Codex’s package counter is still larger than both names combined, and combining them would be a mistake: they are two packages.

opencode-ai 1.19.5, published 2026-10-28, has maintainer thdxr, the same maintainer as @opencode/cli, an empty description, and no repository field. This note does not award it the stars. Its unscoped optional dependency opencode-linux-x64 had 14,334,726 downloads at 05:20:12 GMT, next to the old manifest’s 14,683,512. Five of the twelve unscoped optional names were fetched. The other seven were not. They are not summed.

The twelve @opencode/cli-* platform packages were fetched, at 05:22:24–05:22:26 GMT, and sum to 10,439,632. That is 4.49 times the manifest. linux-x64 was 2,525,113, close to the manifest, and then baseline, musl, and baseline-musl add three more Linux rows. A matrix, again. The README also offers a curl script and brew install anomalyco/tap/opencode-v2. Those paths do not touch the npm counter. The 2,324,159 is the registry. It is not the install base.

What do the PyPI names show for the same dates?

aider-chat had 305,041 downloads without mirrors. The OpenHands CLI package had 99,201 and pins an SDK version from before the current release. The SDK package had 3,533,759.

pypistats responses carried HTTP Date 05:18:50 GMT. The files included November 10. The totals above stop on November 9 so they share the npm window.

openhands 1.16.0 requires openhands-sdk==1.21.0. The current openhands-sdk is 1.61.0, uploaded November 9. A pip install of the CLI name does not fetch the SDK that shipped that day. The CLI’s star cell is the product repository, OpenHands/OpenHands, at 93,172 stars. The SDK repository had 1,379 stars and 3,533,759 downloads. Stars sit on the quiet name. File requests sit on the SDK. openhands-ai 1.11.0, uploaded July 9, points at the product repository and had 344,093 downloads. Three distributions, two repositories. Do not add them.

Aider-AI/aider had 50,059 stars at 05:20:50 GMT. pushed_at on the 05:18:52 GMT read was 2026-05-22T14:02:20Z. aider-chat 0.86.2 was uploaded 2026-02-12. 305,041 downloads in 30 days is a real, modest install base under a star count that stopped moving in May. The November 8 coding-agent brief already recorded that push time. This is the file-request side of it.

Which downloaded names are a different project?

The unscoped npm package codex had 18,949 downloads. It is a documentation generator, version 0.2.3, published in 2012. The CLI is @openai/codex.

@cursor/cli returned 404. The npm package cursor-agent exists, repository zalab-inc/cursor_agent, description “Task sequence creator for Cursor AI agents.” It is not Cursor’s CLI, and its downloads are not in this rank. @gooseai/goose, @block-goose/goose, and block-goose returned 404. The npm package goose is a Go bracket tool. The PyPI package goose is a SQL migration tool. Block’s Goose agent is not in this table because this pass did not find its distribution under those names.

What should you open next?

If you are comparing seats, open Claude Code vs Codex pricing. The download counter will not tell you which plan is cheaper, and it will not tell you the cost per task. The agent cost calculator prices tokens from the vendor’s published rates. It does not add a seat fee, and it does not use these download figures.

If you wanted frameworks rather than CLIs, the live table is the downloads tracker and the stars tracker. The dated coding-agent calendar, prices included, is AI coding agents in the next 30 days. The directory rows are Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini.

If the tool you ship is missing from that directory, submit a listing. No login. An existing row can be claimed from its page.