A month of coding with o3: worth the hype?

o3 is marketed as OpenAI's strongest reasoning model. I gave it 30 days of real work to see if the hype holds.

What impressed me

1. Multi-step debugging — it traces chains of logic without losing the thread
2. Hard algorithmic work — dynamic programming, tricky edge cases
3. Honest self-correction — it catches its own mistakes more often

The trade-offs

• It's slower — "thinking" tokens add latency
• The premium plan ($200/mo) is steep for individuals
• For simple tasks, it's overkill

Verdict

Worth it for the hardest 10% of problems. For everyday coding, Sonnet 4.5 or DeepSeek V3 gives better value. o3 earns its keep when the problem is genuinely hard.