Above the Fog

OpenAI Codex vs Cursor

OpenAI Codex and Cursor side by side on Above the Fog’s AI hype radar, on Oct 29, 2026: OpenAI Codex is 💤 Quiet with a hype score of 8 and Cursor is 🚀 Rising with 25. The radar’s curated relations list them as competitors.

Data note: 7 of the last 14 days were not collected live. No collection ran on Oct 22–Oct 28, or a later run refilled those days at once. Every hype score is measured against the 14 days before it and those days are thin, so the scores, the stages and the week-over-week theme trends may read higher than they are until they leave that window on Nov 12.

At a glance

MeasureOpenAI CodexCursor
Stage💤 Quiet🚀 Rising
Hype score7.725.2
7-day change+3.6+20.2
In hype sincenot in hype nowOct 29, 2026
Peak, 30 days27.7 on Sep 30, 202645.5 on Oct 13, 2026
Stories in 7 days416167
Share of voice, 7 days3.1%1.5%
Sources above normal0 of 202 of 18
Category🤖 Agents🤖 Agents

Hype score, last 30 days

Both hype scores by day, newest first; on the page’s chart, OpenAI Codex is the solid line and Cursor the dashed one.

DayOpenAI CodexCursor
Oct 29, 20267.725.2
Oct 28, 202628.9
Oct 27, 20262.20.4
Oct 26, 20261.60
Oct 25, 202600
Oct 24, 202600
Oct 23, 20264.35
Oct 22, 20264.15
Oct 21, 20266.415.6
Oct 20, 20264.122.2
Oct 19, 20262.69.3
Oct 18, 202612.69.6
Oct 17, 20261.512.3
Oct 16, 20264.540.6
Oct 15, 202620.535.8
Oct 14, 202619.632.6
Oct 13, 202615.845.5
Oct 12, 202615.329.5
Oct 11, 2026017.5
Oct 10, 20264.435.3
Oct 9, 202614.927.4
Oct 8, 202621.730.9
Oct 7, 202615.527.6
Oct 6, 20261728.4
Oct 5, 20263.425.4
Oct 4, 2026026.6
Oct 3, 20261.915.2
Oct 2, 202612.226.6
Oct 1, 2026627.5
Sep 30, 202627.728.4

Shared themes

What the stories of both topics in the last 7 days are about, as classified by the Jev model (a story can carry several themes):

OpenAI Codex: stories behind it

  1. I built a fairly complex PCB using GPT/Codex, got it manufactured, and it actually works. — Reddit (r/codex) · Oct 28 · score 192 · 38 comments
  2. What’s the point of Codex doing usage resets every two days? Is it prep for them cutting usage by 50% at the end of this week? — Reddit (r/vibecoding) · Oct 28 · score 26 · 18 comments
  3. I Built an App with Codex That Runs MiniMax-H3 Entirely on a Smartphone — Generating 5-Second Videos Locally in Just 7 Minutes — Reddit (r/codex) · Oct 28 · score 16 · 14 comments
  4. Show HN: CleanCode – Claude Code and Codex collaborating on one canvas — Hacker News (github.com) · Oct 27 · score 4 · 6 comments
  5. AI review optimized for recall (catches more defects than Codex or Claude) — Hacker News (github.com) · Oct 27 · score 5 · 5 comments

Cursor: stories behind it

  1. Backdoor in Claude Code for VS Code extension on the Cursor Marketplace — Hacker News (phorion.io) · Oct 30 · score 230 · 328 comments
  2. Claude Code VS Code extension with backdoor released on Cursor marketplace — Hacker News (doublepulsar.com) · Oct 30 · score 393 · 1 comment
  3. Show HN: Arsaze – Cursor for video editing (Tab-complete and agent edits) — Hacker News (arsaze.com) · Oct 30 · score 60 · 0 comments
  4. Will agentic coding harnesses (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) stay locked to their parent models, or will we get cross-model support? — Reddit (r/Anthropic) · Oct 28 · score 2 · 12 comments
  5. PSA / Warning: Switched to "The X Subscription" on Cursor Ultra — Claude/OpenAI revoked, support admitted lack of transparency in writing, yet refused rollback/refund (FTC Report filed) — Reddit (r/cursor) · Oct 28 · score 6 · 8 comments

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