Choose Codex for coding with OpenAI's models in ChatGPT, your terminal or your editor: local runs are sandboxed by default, cloud tasks keep going while your computer sleeps, and it reviews pull requests on GitHub. Choose The One to hand ongoing work to teams of agents that can mix vendors, with each matter on a board and deliveries you judge. The two also work together: Codex can call The One's working groups through The One's MCP server, and The One can use Codex models through your ChatGPT sign-in.
| The One | Codex | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A desktop app: a main assistant hands bigger work to working groups of AI agents, each matter on its own board | OpenAI's coding agent, the developer mode of ChatGPT |
| Where you use it | The desktop app; a Linux server for headless runs | The ChatGPT desktop app (Codex mode), CLI, VS Code, Cursor and Windsurf, the web and mobile apps, Slack, Linear |
| Platforms | macOS 15+ on Apple Silicon, Windows, and a Linux server | macOS, Windows and Linux (preview) desktop app; CLI on macOS, Linux and Windows |
| Models | Any vendor, chosen per agent, including Codex models through a ChatGPT sign-in | OpenAI's GPT-6 models; other providers only if they speak the Responses API; local models through Ollama or LM Studio |
| Price | No charge with your own keys or ChatGPT account; membership $20 / $60 / $200 a month with model usage included | Included in ChatGPT Plus $20, Pro $100 / $200 / $500 and Business; limited on Free and Go; or an API key (CLI and IDE only) |
| Several agents | Working groups from templates: roles, handoffs, parallel agents, a worker-and-reviewer task board, sub-groups, lasting across days | Subagents (on by default; custom agents share the parent's provider); parallel chats in worktrees; /goal for long work |
| Undo | An action log of every tool call; undo a call, a run, a matter or everything since a time | No file checkpoints; the docs suggest Git checkpoints, and the app reverts a diff, file or hunk through Git |
| When your computer is off | Agents stop, unless they run on your Linux server | Cloud tasks run in their own VMs |
| Automation | Triggers on a schedule or cron, when a folder, a web page or a mailbox has something new, or on a webhook | App schedules while the computer is on; cloud schedules with Gmail, Slack and GitHub triggers; GitHub Action and @codex review |
| From your phone | Agent Room channel, text | The ChatGPT mobile app starts, steers and approves tasks |
| Source | Closed source; the docs are public | CLI and SDK Apache-2.0 (no outside contributions); app, IDE extension and cloud closed |
Facts checked on 2026-11-13 from learn.chatgpt.com and developers.openai.com, and from The One's docs. Something changed? Tell us at support@the-zeroth.com
