GitHub Gist is Free / $4/mo (Pro). Codex is a self-hosted alternative at $0.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.
| Codex | GitHub Gist | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, your infra | Managed SaaS (cloud only) |
| Data location | Your server, your disk | GitHub Gist's cloud |
| Free tier | 50 snippets | Free / $4/mo |
| Pro pricing | $0.99/mo | Free / $4/mo (Pro) |
| Dependencies | None (single binary + SQLite) | N/A (managed) |
| Setup time | ~30 seconds | Account signup |
| Dashboard | Built-in at /ui | Cloud dashboard |
| License | BSL 1.1 | Proprietary SaaS |
Codex is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.
curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/codex/install.sh | sh
The pricing math between Codex and GitHub Gist changes depending on team size. GitHub Gist at Free / $4/mo (Pro) is reasonable for a solo user. At ten seats, the difference compounds. Codex is a flat $0.99/mo regardless of seats — the binary does not count how many people use it. For growing teams, this makes Codex progressively cheaper while GitHub Gist gets progressively more expensive.
Architecturally, Codex and GitHub Gist could not be more different. GitHub Gist runs on distributed cloud infrastructure with load balancers, managed databases, CDNs, and redundancy across availability zones. Codex is a single process writing to a single file on a single disk. That sounds fragile until you realize that SQLite handles more concurrent readers than most web applications will ever need, and WAL mode means reads never block writes.
The migration path from GitHub Gist depends on how much history you need to bring over. If you only need active records, a manual re-entry through Codex's dashboard might be faster than writing a migration script. If you need full history, export from GitHub Gist and use Codex's POST API to import records. Either way, the process is measured in hours, not weeks.
Single binary. Free to start. $0.99/mo for Pro.