OpenHands crushed Codex by 2.3× on token efficiency!
We gave both agents the same task on the same model (Qwen3.5 35B): build an 8-bit Space Invaders in 3 iterations (build, fix, polish).
Output:
• OpenHands: 219K tokens,
• Codex: 513K tokens,
@OpenHandsDev beats Codex in local running. The difference is in how they handle context. OpenHands reuses the unchanged data across every pass and only pays for new tokens, while Codex re-sends and re-counts it every iteration. OpenHands finished a bit slower, but on local runs, tokens spent are the real cost.