Matthew Goley

Is Anthropic pulling ahead of OpenAI

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I've been using Claude Code heavily for the past few months while building my startup (12k+ line Python codebase), and it's genuinely changed the way I develop. It navigates large codebases with context that I haven't seen from any other tool: understanding file relationships, catching upstream/downstream effects of changes, and reasoning about architecture-level decisions, not just autocompleting lines.

But what really caught my attention is the business side. Anthropic is forecasting cash-flow positive by 2027, while OpenAI is projected to burn through $115B+ through 2029. Claude Code alone reportedly crossed $1B in annualized revenue. Their API revenue is estimated at double OpenAI's. And they're doing all of this with significantly lower burn.

It feels like we're watching a shift happen in real time, and they might actually be building a sustainable business. Curious what everyone else is seeing.

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Stan Kolotinskiy

I'd say it always was (from my experience with Claude Code) :) Can't be confident about the business side though

Rahul Manjhi

@sk_uxpin For me, Anthropic feels more focused on safety and thoughtful responses, while openAI still seems more versatile and ahead in product reach.

Nitesh Kumar

@sk_uxpin  @rahul_manjhi1 Honestly, I think both companies are pushing each other forward. I use tools from both, and each one feels stronger in different areas.

Matthew Goley

@rahul_manjhi1 Anthropic's focus on safety and privacy has definitely had an interesting, and beneficial, outlook on the company. They take a different approach to model training than OpenAI, that was supposed to help keep the model within ethical boundaries, but it also created a smarter and almost more nuanced model.

Although, OpenAI is still miles ahead in their overall reach, I still meet people that don't know what Claude is.

Stan Kolotinskiy

@matthew_goley maybe that's because OpenAI was the first one to hear about - but yeah, all in all I'm not really surprised

Bengeekly

I also believe the ecosystem is now more oriented toward Claude and Anthropic than OpenAI. For example, We are working towards making our platform Agent friendly. and while building skills and integrations so that AI and agents can access our tools. When you look online, you find more about skills, claude agents, and even plugins than GPTs, which is how OpenAI integrations are done. In general, most people are building more for Anthropic than for OpenAI.

Matthew Goley

@bengeekly That's a really interesting signal. The fact that developers are building more around Claude's ecosystem than GPTs says a lot about where the momentum is heading. It makes sense too, Anthropic's approach to agents and integrations feels more developer-native than what OpenAI has set up with the GPT store (similar to the stripe paypal situation).

Curious how the Mailwarm integration is going. Are you finding it easier to build for Claude agents compared to other platforms?

Alper Tayfur

hello @matthew_goley I think Anthropic is clearly pulling ahead in developer and enterprise mindshare, especially with Claude Code. The revenue and adoption signals are hard to ignore.

That said, OpenAI still seems stronger on consumer scale, product breadth, and distribution. So I’d frame it less as “Anthropic has won” and more as: Anthropic may be leading the highest-value workflow layer right now, while OpenAI still owns the broadest platform.

Matthew Goley

@alpertayfurr Yes I agree, OpenAI still has the brand reach and the "one stop shop" advantage. Anthropic's edge is clearer to founders, but for most people ChatGPT just feels more accessible.

That said, I'm curious how OpenAI plans to actually become profitable. It's hard to survive in a market where your product is mostly a stepping stone into someone else's specialized model.