# OpenClaw vs Hermes Agent: Which Open-Source Personal AI Agent Should You Run? > Compare OpenClaw and Hermes Agent on setup, messaging, memory, tools and task execution, with sources and questions to guide your evaluation. Published 2026-10-16 · Agentastic Team · Canonical: https://www.agentastic.com/compare/openclaw-vs-hermes-agent **Short answer:** both are free, MIT-licensed personal AI agents you run on your own hardware, and both are excellent. **OpenClaw** is the better fit if you want your assistant in as many chat apps as possible, including iMessage, with companion apps on your devices and everything kept on your machine. **Hermes Agent** is the better fit if you want an agent that improves itself by writing and refining its own skills, and that can run its work in isolated cloud sandboxes instead of on your computer. If you don't want to run a server at all, consider a hosted agent instead. These are the two most popular open-source personal agents in the world right now, with roughly 392,000 and 253,000 GitHub stars respectively as of October 11, 2026. They also come up together constantly: "openclaw vs hermes" is a common search, and Hermes ships a command to migrate from OpenClaw. Here is how they actually differ. ## At a glance (as of October 11, 2026) | | OpenClaw | Hermes Agent | |---|---|---| | **What it is** | Open-source assistant that runs on your computer and meets you in your chat apps | Self-improving open-source agent with a built-in learning loop | | **Made by** | Created by Peter Steinberger, now stewarded by an independent 501(c)(3) | Nous Research ($90M Series B at a $1.5B valuation, October 2026) | | **License** | MIT | MIT | | **Language** | TypeScript (Node.js) | Python | | **First commit** | November 2025 | July 2025 | | **GitHub stars** | About 392,000 | About 253,000 | | **Runs on** | macOS, Linux, Windows | Linux, macOS, WSL2, native Windows, Android via Termux | | **Chat channels** | Discord, iMessage, Slack, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp and 20+ more | Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, email | | **Device apps** | Native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux, plus companion "nodes" for voice, canvas, camera and screen | Terminal UI and CLI | | **Models** | Hosted or local providers, with model harnesses (Claude, Codex, local) as swappable plugins | Any provider, including Nous Portal (300+ models), OpenRouter, OpenAI or your own endpoint | | **Memory** | Kept on your hardware, in files like `MEMORY.md` and `USER.md` | Agent-curated memory with periodic nudges, plus full-text search over past sessions | | **Skills** | Skills, plugins and the ClawHub registry | Writes skills after complex tasks and improves them during use, plus a Skills Hub | | **Scheduling** | Automations: cron schedules, webhooks and Gmail triggers | Built-in cron with delivery to any connected platform | | **Where commands run** | On the host for the main session unless you configure sandboxing | Seven backends: local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal, Daytona, Vercel Sandbox | | **Pricing** | Free. No subscription and no hosted tier | Free. Optional Nous Portal subscription, and Hermes for Businesses | ## OpenClaw in brief OpenClaw describes itself as "your assistant, on your devices, in your chats." You install it with a one-line script or npm, run an onboarding wizard, and it sets up a local **Gateway**: the control plane for your sessions, tools, events and connected chat apps. You talk to it from WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage, Slack or wherever you've connected it, through native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux, or through its web Control UI and terminal interface. Companion apps add voice, a canvas, camera and screen access on supported devices, and its automations run on cron schedules, webhooks or Gmail triggers. Its philosophy is ownership. In the README's words, "state, memory, and credentials live on your hardware," and models and agent harnesses are plugins you can swap. Its website goes further: "No subscription. No hosted tier. No token." You may remember it under its earlier names, Clawdbot and Moltbot. It became one of the fastest-growing projects on GitHub in early 2026, and US search interest peaked in March. Its creator, Peter Steinberger, joined OpenAI in February 2026, and the project is now stewarded by an independent nonprofit. ## Hermes Agent in brief Hermes Agent, from Nous Research, calls itself "the self-improving AI agent." Its distinguishing feature is a **learning loop**: it curates its own memory, gets periodic nudges to save what it learned, creates skills from experience after complex tasks, improves those skills as it uses them, and searches its own past conversations. You run it as a terminal app (`hermes`) or start its gateway and talk to it from Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal or email. It can schedule work with a built-in cron, spawn isolated subagents for parallel tasks, and, unusually, run its commands on seven different backends, from your own machine to Docker, SSH, or cloud sandboxes on Modal, Daytona and Vercel Sandbox. The Modal and Daytona options hibernate when idle. Nous Research raised a $90 million Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation on October 7, 2026, and is launching Hermes for Businesses. The company estimates Hermes has been cloned more than 24 million times. ## Where they really differ ### 1. Reach vs self-improvement OpenClaw's center of gravity is **reach**: more chat channels, including iMessage, and companion apps on your devices. Hermes's is **learning**: an agent that gets better at your recurring tasks by writing its own procedures. Neither ignores the other's strength, but you can feel the priority in the docs. ### 2. Where the work runs This is the most practical difference. By default OpenClaw runs tools on the host for your main session, which is powerful (it can touch your real files and apps) and risky unless you configure sandboxing. Hermes makes the execution backend a first-class choice, so you can keep the agent's commands in Docker or a cloud sandbox and away from your machine. If the idea of an agent running shell commands on your laptop makes you nervous, Hermes's backends are a real advantage. See [what is an agent VM](https://www.agentastic.com/learn/what-is-an-agent-vm) for why that matters. ### 3. Models and tools Both work with any major model provider and with local models. Hermes adds an optional shortcut: a Nous Portal subscription bundles 300+ models plus a tool gateway for web search, image generation, text-to-speech and a cloud browser, so you don't collect five separate API keys. OpenClaw leans on its plugin and skills ecosystem, including the ClawHub registry. ### 4. Who's behind it OpenClaw is stewarded by a nonprofit and promises no hosted tier. Hermes is backed by a venture-funded company that also sells a business product. Both are MIT-licensed, so either can be forked, but the incentives differ, and some people care about that a lot. ## Security: what self-hosting asks of you Running your own agent means you're the security team. Whichever you choose: - **Treat every inbound message as untrusted.** OpenClaw's own README says so. Anyone who can message your agent can try to instruct it. - **Restrict who can talk to it.** OpenClaw pairs unknown senders by default, so keep pairing and allowlists on. - **Sandbox command execution.** Configure OpenClaw's sandboxing, or point Hermes at Docker or a remote sandbox. - **Keep secrets out of reach.** Don't leave API keys and passwords where a prompt-injected agent can read them. See [what is an agent vault](https://www.agentastic.com/learn/what-is-an-agent-vault). - **Don't expose the gateway to the internet** without reading the project's exposure guidance, and keep it updated. OpenClaw publishes security guides and, in September 2026, a recap of an engagement with the security firm Trail of Bits. ## Switching between them Hermes includes `hermes claw migrate`, which imports OpenClaw settings, memories (`MEMORY.md` and `USER.md` entries), your skills and API keys, with dry-run previews. That makes trying Hermes low-risk if you already run OpenClaw. There's no equivalent tool in the other direction listed in OpenClaw's README. ## Which should you run? **Choose OpenClaw if** you want your assistant in iMessage and the widest set of chat apps, you like companion apps on your phone and computer, and you want a project with no hosted tier and no company upsell. **Choose Hermes Agent if** you want an agent that writes and improves its own skills, you'd rather run its commands in Docker or a cloud sandbox than on your laptop, you work in Python, or you want a supported business path. **Choose neither if** you don't want to run and secure a daemon, manage API keys, watch for updates and debug the occasional broken channel. That's a real job, and it's fine not to want it. ## If you'd rather not self-host Agentastic is a hosted personal agent with a similar shape: a chief of staff you text on iMessage and WhatsApp, the same agent on mobile and the web, and co-working agents inside your Mac apps, all sharing one memory you can edit. Passwords live in an end-to-end encrypted vault and are filled into pages without the model ever seeing them. Anything that commits you waits for your approval. The trade-off is honest: you trust us to run it instead of running it yourself. The Hobby plan is free if you want to compare. For the bigger picture on what makes any of these agents personal, see [what is a personal AI agent](https://www.agentastic.com/learn/what-is-a-personal-ai-agent). ## Sources - [OpenClaw on GitHub](https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw), [openclaw.ai](https://openclaw.ai/), [OpenClaw security guide](https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/security), accessed Oct. 11, 2026 - OpenClaw, [Trail of Bits engagement recap](https://openclaw.ai/blog/openclaw-trail-of-bits-engagement-recap) (Sept. 2026) and [automations documentation](https://docs.openclaw.ai/automation/cron-jobs) - Forbes, [What Is OpenClaw, Formerly Moltbot? Everything You Need To Know](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2026/02/06/what-is-openclaw-formerly-moltbot--everything-you-need-to-know/) (Feb. 6, 2026) and Mashable, [OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI](https://mashable.com/article/openclaw-founder-peter-steinberger-joins-openai) (Feb. 16, 2026) - [Hermes Agent on GitHub](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent) and [documentation](https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/), accessed Oct. 11, 2026 - TechCrunch, [Nous Research confirms it hit $1.5B valuation, launches AI agents for business users](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/07/nous-research-confirms-it-hit-1-5b-valuation-launches-ai-agents-for-business-users/) (Oct. 7, 2026) - Google Trends, US search interest for "openclaw," Oct. 2025 to Oct. 2026 ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between OpenClaw and Hermes Agent? Both are free, MIT-licensed personal AI agents you run yourself. OpenClaw is built around a local Gateway that connects your assistant to more than 20 chat apps, including iMessage, and to companion apps on your devices. Hermes Agent, from Nous Research, is built around a learning loop that curates its own memory and writes and improves skills, and it can run its commands locally or in cloud sandboxes such as Modal, Daytona and Vercel Sandbox. ### Is OpenClaw free? Yes. OpenClaw is open source under the MIT license and, according to its website, has no subscription and no hosted tier. You pay for the model provider you connect, unless you run local models, and for whatever machine you run it on. ### Is Hermes Agent free? Yes. Hermes Agent is open source under the MIT license. You can bring your own model keys, or optionally use a Nous Portal subscription that bundles models and tools such as web search and a cloud browser. Nous Research also sells Hermes for Businesses. ### Can I migrate from OpenClaw to Hermes Agent? Yes. Hermes Agent includes a 'hermes claw migrate' command that imports OpenClaw settings, memories (MEMORY.md and USER.md entries), user-created skills and API keys, with a dry-run option. ### Which is more secure, OpenClaw or Hermes Agent? Neither is secure in every setup by default. Both depend on configuration. OpenClaw pairs unknown senders by default but runs tools on the host for the main session unless you configure sandboxing. Hermes can send commands to Docker or remote sandboxes. Whichever you choose, treat inbound messages as untrusted, restrict who can message it, sandbox command execution and keep secrets out of reach. ### Is OpenClaw dead? No. As of October 11, 2026 the OpenClaw repository was being updated daily and had about 392,000 GitHub stars. US search interest is far below its March 2026 peak, which is normal after a viral launch.