Replit switches Replit Agent default to OpenAI: Sol and Astra beat Claude on vibe-coded apps, CEO says

#What happened

• At TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday, Oct 15, Replit co-founder and CEO Amjad Masad said Replit is "no longer working with Anthropic," naming OpenAI its preferred partner for powering Replit Agent, based on performance, economics, and the strength of the partnership (TechCrunch, Oct 16).
• "I think ChatGPT is better now," Masad said onstage, pointing to an internal benchmark and a public one Replit publishes where, he said, GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra "perform better on building vibe-coded applications from scratch."
• Replit had been, until recently, one of Anthropic's top-five customers, and relied on Claude models to run its platform before striking its OpenAI partnership in August.
• Masad repeated the point on X on Saturday, Oct 17: "OpenAI is now our preferred partner powering Agent based on performance, cost, and strength of our partnership," adding that OpenAI models are generally more affordable.
• Not a clean break: customers can still choose Claude models, and Replit's Oct 16 changelog added Claude Haiku 5.5 to Power Mode. One person familiar with the Anthropic-Replit partnership told TechCrunch the partnership was still in place (webpronews, Oct 17).

#Why it matters

• Defaults move spend: TechCrunch notes most customers stick with the default, so the switch could significantly reduce Replit's spending with Anthropic.
• It is a production verdict on the GPT-6 family in coding agents, with Sol and Astra named explicitly as outperforming Claude on vibe-coded apps, as OpenAI pushes its agent stack against Anthropic's Claude.

Verified October 17, 2026.