Rating certificate · AW/26-09/90326 Sept 2026
69of 100
Hermes Agent
Nous Research · Personal & desktop agents
No. 1 of 3 in categoryhigh confidenceTrust BOpen source
The Register / Personal & desktop agents / Hermes Agent
Register entry · Personal & desktop agents · updated 26 Sept 2026
Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent is an MIT-licensed agent from Nous Research (first released February 2026) that runs as a CLI/TUI, a desktop app, or a gateway reachable from Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, email and other channels. It keeps session history and curated memory, creates and refines reusable skills after complex tasks, runs natural-language cron jobs and delegates to subagents. Shell commands can execute locally or in Docker, SSH, Modal, Daytona, Vercel Sandbox or Singularity backends. Nous also offers hosted instances (Hermes Cloud) through the Nous Portal.
What reviewers and users praise
- Users report it is more reliable than OpenClaw across updates (Reddit comparison threads)
- Practical everyday automations such as price watching, business task tracking and homelab maintenance (HN)
- Works with local and hosted models; widely covered by large YouTube creators
What they criticise
- Setup and secure operation require technical judgment (The Rundown AI)
- Some users find the UI/UX slow or unclear, and report slow task completion versus OpenClaw
- Rapid AI-assisted development cadence with dozens of third-party CVE reports in 2026
Experts vs the crowdcrowd warmer by 1
Experts64
Crowd65
| Price | Free |
|---|---|
| Use it via | CLI, Desktop app, Chat apps, MCP server, API |
| Runs on | macos, linux, windows |
| Licence | MIT |
| Updated | Evidence collected 26 Sept 2026 |
How the rating was worked out
Weights for Personal & desktop agents: adoption 30%, experts 35%, crowd 35%. Pillars without enough evidence are left out and the others re-weighted. The method.
| Adoption & momentumweight 30% | 79 | GitHub stars 249k → 100 · PyPI monthly downloads 139k → 40 · 18 releases in 90 days → 100reach × 0.7 + momentum × 0.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Expertsindependent reviews · weight 35% | 64 | 8 independent reviews (4 positive · 3 mixed · 1 negative), averaged toward 50 for small samples. |
| Crowdcommunity sample · weight 35% | 65 | 21 dated posts from hackernews, reddit, x: 12 positive · 5 mixed · 4 negative (positive + ½ mixed) ÷ n, averaged toward 50 for small samples |
| Rating | 69 | high confidence (3 of 3 pillars, 21 community posts). |
Evidence checks. 3 items removed: date does not match the source (3). 4 items could not be checked at the source (the page could not be fetched, or the quote is from a comment under the linked post); kept and marked “unverified”. How evidence is checked.
Editorial adjustment. Incident-history re-grade under methodology revision 2 (see the trust section).
Trust & safety
Seven dimensions graded A–D from documented facts. Overall: B.
B
Permission model
Documented approval modes for dangerous commands: smart (default, LLM-assessed with escalation to manual prompt), manual, off/--yolo; fail-closed timeout; hardline blocklist. Default terminal backend is `local` (no sandbox); container backends are opt-in. source
B
Data access scope
Local backend gives the agent the user's filesystem and shell; documented user allowlists/DM pairing for messaging, deny rules, protected credential paths and an optional HERMES_WRITE_SAFE_ROOT write prefix (set automatically only in the official Docker image). source
A
Data storage
Self-hosted; config, sessions (state.db), memory and pairing data are stored under ~/.hermes on the user's host. Hosted Hermes Cloud is optional. source
n/e
Data retention & training
Self-hosted software; retention/training depends on the chosen model provider. No retention or no-training statement found for Hermes Cloud / Nous Portal in the pages reviewed. source
n/e
Incident history (24 months)
NVD lists 39 CVEs for hermes-agent published 2026-04-27 to 2026-09-03 (29 medium, 8 high at CVSS 7.3, 2 low), including approval-guard bypasses (tools/approval.py) and prompt/skill injection. Most appear to be third-party (VulDB-style) reports; resolution status per CVE not verified. No GitHub security advisories are published on the repo. Regraded from D: Revision 2: D needs an unresolved issue or a slow or undisclosed fix, and C needs each issue fixed and disclosed; the evidence establishes neither, so this dimension is not graded. source
D
Compliance
No SOC 2 / ISO 27001 attestation found for Hermes Agent or Hermes Cloud. source
A
Transparency
MIT licence (Copyright Nous Research); detailed public release notes on GitHub; public docs source in the repo. source
The experts
8 named independent reviews found; dated reviews from the last 12 months are scored.
- positive
after a month of daily use, I'm switching to it from OpenClaw
NetworkChuck (YouTube) · 20 May 2026 · youtube.com - mixed
I also cover the real downsides like slower response times, model compatibility issues, and the learning curve
Roboverse (YouTube) · 29 May 2026 · youtube.com - positive
Hermes Agent is a strong option for technical users who want an open, persistent agent they can reach from many surfaces and pair with almost any model.
The Rundown AI · 29 Aug 2026 · therundown.ai - positive
If your use case is "AI agent accessible on messaging platforms," Hermes is the best option I've found.
George Larson (practitioner blog, cross-posted to DEV) · 20 Mar 2026 · dev.to - positive
The upside case is that you experience, for the first time, an AI assistant that actually remembers you — and you cannot go back.
Bruce (heyuan110.com, Bruce on AI Engineering) · 14 Apr 2026 · heyuan110.com - mixed
OpenClaw is an agent you actively shape. Hermes is an agent that turns more of its own work into future procedure and improve itself. Not universally better.
Shubham Saboo (X article) · 15 Apr 2026 · x.com - mixed
These are both real advances — they just make different trade-offs. The question isn’t which one is better. It’s which trade-off fits your actual workflow.
Sathish Raju (Medium) · 22 Apr 2026 · unverified · medium.com - negative
I asked it to make a copy of a button… It failed pretty hard, so I am not optimistic for significant contributions any time soon.
Matt Lea (Schematical, LinkedIn) · 11 May 2026 · linkedin.com
The crowd
21 coded posts from hackernews, reddit, x.
12 positive5 mixed4 negative
- positive
It is some effort but I recommend trying Hermes Agent and setting it up fully, that's the closest you'll get to a more complete experience.
news.ycombinator.com · 21 Sept 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
I have a Hermes agent running on VM that does this. I told it to keep an eye on prices.
news.ycombinator.com · 21 Sept 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
But hermes agent can do whatever openclaw can. At least in my experience.
news.ycombinator.com · 31 Aug 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
It's really, really helpful. So many things I would have completely missed if it weren't for this.
news.ycombinator.com · 27 Aug 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
Hermes Agent is AI slop "ai assistant" software that is being entirely developed by a bunch of AI agents.
news.ycombinator.com · 19 Aug 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
When I went to the Hermes agent web page, I was left with zero clue about what it did or what it could do.
news.ycombinator.com · 31 Jul 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
Yes, indeed, Hermes has so far never been completely left unusable after an update.
r/openclaw · 21 Sept 2026 · unverified · reddit.com - positive
If I could start all over again, I would start with Hermes. It's much more reliable.
r/openclaw · 20 Sept 2026 · unverified · reddit.com
Pricing
As published, checked 26 Sept 2026.
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open source (self-hosted) | Free | MIT licence; users pay for models, servers and external services. |
| Hermes Cloud (hosted instances via Nous Portal) | Custom | Hosted Hermes instances managed from the Nous Portal; pricing not verified without an account. |
Recent changes
- 24 Sept 2026
v0.21.5 (v2026.9.24) patch release rolling up ~460 merged PRs. source
- 11 Sept 2026
v0.21.2 'state.db patch release' fixing session-store fragility introduced in v0.21.0. source
- 31 Aug 2026
v0.21.0: Bot Mode built into the desktop app (multi-agent group chats), MCP command center, agent-driven in-app browser, cron memory and continuity. source
- 13 Aug 2026
v0.20.x patch series (v0.20.1–v0.20.6) through August. source
Ranked alongside
Other ranked entries in Personal & desktop agents.
Sources
Every figure above traces to one of these, observed up to 26 Sept 2026.