The short answer
Pick Claude Cowork if you have never built software and want a friendly start: you point it at a folder of documents, and it shows you the plan and the trade-offs in a clean interface. Pick Claude Code in the terminal once you want to go fast, because you can run many sessions at the same time.
Under the hood they are close. Sam's description in Episode 29 (January 2026) was that Cowork is "basically just, like, wrapper around Claude Code." Our evidence is one live build and one good back-and-forth in that episode, plus a few mentions since, so this page is short.
What we built with each
Claude Code
- ScreenEval: Sam's recruiter coaching app, built in about six hours of work between meetings with Supabase and Opus 4.5. He started it in Cowork, but "pretty quickly, it it just makes sense to to keep it in the terminal" (Episode 29, at 08:48).
- Sam's ATS, the Kalshi prediction market trading bot, the personal DNA and health insights dashboard and the Offsiteio estimator all ran through Claude Code.
Claude Cowork
- Hollywood transformation trainer (Cowork live build): Sam's only Cowork build on the show. He gave Cowork access to a folder with his PRD, typed "build this," and Cowork read the doc, summarized it as a mobile web app for "aggressive upper body hypertrophy," and asked how to build it. Sam picked React and Supabase and watched the plan run (Episode 29, at 11:12).
Head-to-head
Jordan's view was that the interface is the least important choice:
No. I mean, I've used CoWork. I think it's a great tool. I love that you can just dump a bunch of documents in. Honestly, I don't really care what interface you use.
— Jordan Metzner, Episode 29
What matters, he said, is "using like the best tools at the time," and at that point the Anthropic tools were the best. He still prefers the terminal because "you can literally have as many of these as you wanted running simultaneously."
Jordan also used the Cowork demo to make a point about skills. He has a skill with the design features and layouts he likes, and Sam can use it to get the same look in his projects. He expects "enterprise skills" shared across a whole company, so everyone's products work hand in hand (Episode 29, at 14:12). That works the same whichever interface you pick.
His closing thought on the debate: "what's today's interface may not be tomorrow's interface," so be willing to keep changing how you work to keep up with the tools.
Where each one fell short
Claude Cowork. Parallel work. Sam explained why he moved ScreenEval into the terminal:
You can literally have, you know, five, four, five terminals open working on different projects.
— Sam Nadler, Episode 29
He called that "managing a team of little clods," and said the pace is "way faster than kinda waiting for this to go through the progress and the plan." The live Cowork build took long enough that Sam said we might edit a little of the wait out.
Claude Code. The terminal is a barrier for people who are not technical. Adir Ben-Yehuda argued in Episode 43 that many PMs "don't understand CLI," which is exactly the gap Cowork covers. Later, in Episode 35, Jordan said Claude Code would make mistakes "but be confident that there were no mistakes," which pushed him toward Codex.
What our guests use
When Jordan asked Sagi Waitzman about Cowork in Episode 28, Sagi answered with Claude Code: his team uses it and Google Antigravity for features built from zero, and Claude for research. No guest told us they build in Cowork.
Which one we reach for now
Both, for different people. In Episode 36 (March 2026), Jordan said everyone at Ryz Labs has access to Claude, Claude Code and Claude Cowork. In Episode 42 Sam said "we use both over here." Jordan sees Cowork as the way more people get into building, and in Episode 40 he named it, with Claude Design, as a product "customers have been loving."
For our own builds, Sam and Jordan work in the Claude Code terminal or in OpenAI Codex. Sam noted the Codex desktop app feels "very, very similar to Cowork" (Episode 30). Our advice: start in Cowork if the terminal scares you, and move once you want three or four builds going at once. For the next step up, see Claude Code vs OpenAI Codex and Claude Code vs Cursor.
FAQ
What is the difference between Claude Cowork and Claude Code?
Sam described Cowork as basically a wrapper around Claude Code inside the Anthropic Mac desktop app. It adds a chat-style interface, a polished plan and progress view, and access to a folder of your documents; Claude Code runs in the terminal.
Is Claude Cowork good for non-technical users?
Yes, that is how we see it. Sam called it an entry point for almost anyone to start building, and Jordan called it a gateway drug to getting more stuff built.
Why use Claude Code instead of Cowork?
Parallel work. In the terminal you can run four or five Claude Code sessions on different projects at once, which Sam found way faster than waiting on Cowork's plan and progress screens.
Can I use both Claude Code and Cowork?
Yes. Sam started ScreenEval in Cowork and finished it in the Claude Code terminal, and Jordan and Sam's company gives everyone access to Claude, Claude Code and Claude Cowork.