- hermes update (git installs), or re-run the installer one-liner.
- Docker / Hermes Cloud: images build from this tag (nousresearch/hermes-agent:v2026.9.24).
Hermes Agent by Nous Research
Pulse Score
54 / 100
Rank #27 of 157
Downloads, last 7 days
50.2K
up 37.3% vs previous week
Downloads, last 30 days
165K
down 39.8% vs previous 30 days
GitHub stars
251K
about +259 a day
Latest release
2026.9.24
12d ago · 5 in 30 days
Price
Free (OSS)
checked Oct 5, 2026
Overview
Open-source self-improving agent from Nous Research that keeps persistent memory, creates and refines skills from experience, runs scheduled automations, and works from a terminal interface or messaging apps such as Telegram, Discord, Slack and WhatsApp. It can run locally or on Docker, SSH, Modal and Daytona backends, and has a desktop app.
Hermes Agent was downloaded 50.2K times from PyPI in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, up 37.3% on the week before and down 39.8% over the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. The GitHub repository has 251K stars, 10,329 of them added in the last 30 days. The latest stable release is 2026.9.24, published Sep 24, 2026; there were 5 stable releases in the past 30 days. It was mentioned in 25 Hacker News posts and comments over the last 30 days.
Recent developments
- 2026-06: Hermes Desktop app launched (per Wikipedia and press cited there).
Hermes Agent usage and attention over time
Download the raw daily series: hermes-agent.csv
Install Hermes Agent
| PyPI | pip install hermes-agent |
|---|---|
| Homebrew | brew install hermes-agent |
| Docker | docker pull nousresearch/hermes-agent |
These commands use the packages tracked on this page. The vendor may recommend a different installer; see the official documentation.
Key facts
| Maker | Nous Research |
|---|---|
| Type | Personal assistant agent |
| First released | February 2026 |
| License | MIT |
| Interfaces | CLI, Messaging apps, Desktop |
| Platforms | macOS, Linux, Windows, Android |
| Models | Any model: Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI and custom endpoints |
| Bring your own API key | Yes |
| Main language | Python |
| Open issues and PRs | 48,043 |
| Homebrew installs | 1,542 in 30 days · 13,497 in a year |
| Docker Hub pulls | 13,161,479 |
Pricing
Free and open source (MIT); users pay their chosen model providers (Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI or custom endpoints).
Source: official pricing page, checked Oct 5, 2026. Prices change often; confirm before you buy.
Pulse Score breakdown
Adoption57
Community100
Attention36
Momentum10
Each component is scored 0 to 100 from public signals; a dash means no data for it. Methodology.
What changed: recent Hermes Agent releases
17 stable releases in the last 90 days · Full changelog
- hermes update (git installs), or re-run the installer one-liner.
- Docker / Hermes Cloud: images build from this tag (nousresearch/hermes-agent:v2026.9.21).
- Remote dashboard sessions no longer expire on refresh bursts (#110061, fixes #55712; salvage #71548 @Doud-FR, #55717 @liuhao1024). Both refresh paths on the gateway (cookie gate and the desktop's…
- Long-lived processes stop leaking duplicate state.db writer handles (#110934, fixes #100896 #103339; salvage #107974 @kshitijk4poor, mapping @Rroven): gateway, dashboard/Desktop backend, ACP and…
- hermes update (git installs), or re-run the installer one-liner.
- Docker / Hermes Cloud: images build from this tag (nousresearch/hermes-agent:v2026.9.14).
- No more second writers. Profile gateways wrote hosted-room state into the root state.db every 5 seconds; the dashboard opened a writable handle on startup; cron's lifecycle guard did a raw open()…
- Healthy WAL databases stop wedging. OpenZFS (deleted) dentries and a close() racing an appendmessage both produced a sticky DeletedWalGenerationError on a perfectly good store; the read pool was…
- FTS damage no longer kills your turn. An error scoped to the full-text-search index was classified as whole-file corruption and fail-closed the conversation. It's now ftsindex: search degrades,…
- One corrupt row no longer kills sessions list, export, or insights. A TEXT timestamp or a 1e30 epoch used to crash the whole listing; malformed marker JSON crashed jsonextract; more than 999 ids…
- Sessions never bind to or read another profile's database. The Desktop launch backend could pin itself to the wrong profile's state.db under a HERMESHOME override race; sessionsearch by bare ID…
- Opening state.db no longer takes the write lock when nothing needs writing. A one-shot hermes process opening the store behind a busy gateway stalled 4–20 s and then failed with "database is…
- Existing install: hermes update
- Fresh install: curl -fsSL | bash
- Managed deployments should update through their deployment tooling using the new tag.
- Bot Mode — your agents become a society, built in — Bot Mode is now a bundled, default-on part of the desktop app: every agent profile gets a name, a deterministic avatar face (with randomize/lock…
- hermes peer — bot-to-bot DMs between your agents — Any Hermes agent can now message any other by handle, across profiles and gateways, from the CLI or from inside a conversation. Ask your research…
- Cron jobs that remember — Scheduled jobs stopped being goldfish. Cron agents now load and update persistent memory like every other agent, continuity=true carries each run's output into the next…
- Steer your subagents while they run — delegatetask gained live orchestration: list running children, steer one mid-flight with a course correction, or stop it early and keep the partial result.…
- The MCP command center — MCP servers and the catalog merged into one coherent desktop page with drag-in "paste anything" import, background health checks that nudge you to re-auth before a tool…
- A CLI power wave — Ctrl+P opens a fuzzy command palette, the /model picker filters as you type, /status shows reasoning mode, pending approvals, and context usage, and the status bar can display…
Hermes Agent alternatives
| # | Agent | Pulse | Downloads 7d | 7d | 30d | VS Code installs | Stars | Latest release | Price | Last 90 days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |
OpenClawOpenClaw Foundation (nonprofit); created by Peter Steinberger |
80 | 4.5M | up 34.8% | up 28.5% | — | 391K+162/day | 2026.9.83d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| 37 |
ManusButterfly Effect Pte. Ltd. (Manus AI), Singapore |
51 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Free + $20/mo | ||
| 62 |
GensparkGenspark Inc. (MainFunc) |
42 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Free + $24.99/mo | ||
| 74 |
AutoGPTSignificant Gravitas |
38 | — | — | — | — | 188K+22/day | 0.6.448mo ago | Free + $50/mo | ||
| 83 |
KortixKortix AI |
35 | — | — | — | — | 20.2K+3/day | 0.13.502d ago | Free + $40/mo | ||
| 105 |
DeerFlowByteDance |
27 | — | — | — | — | 83.4K+42/day | 2.1.012d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| No agents match that filter. | |||||||||||
Head to head: Hermes Agent vs OpenCode · Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw · Hermes Agent vs Manus · Hermes Agent vs Genspark · Hermes Agent vs AutoGPT
Hermes Agent FAQ
How much does Hermes Agent cost?
Free and open source (MIT); users pay their chosen model providers (Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI or custom endpoints).
Is Hermes Agent open source?
Yes. Hermes Agent is open source, released under the MIT license.
How popular is Hermes Agent?
Hermes Agent was downloaded 50.2K times from PyPI in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, up 37.3% on the week before and down 39.8% over the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. The GitHub repository has 251K stars, 10,329 of them added in the last 30 days. The latest stable release is 2026.9.24, published Sep 24, 2026; there were 5 stable releases in the past 30 days.
What is the latest version of Hermes Agent?
The latest stable release we track is 2026.9.24, published on Sep 24, 2026.
What are the alternatives to Hermes Agent?
The closest alternatives in the same category by Pulse Score are OpenClaw, Manus, Genspark, AutoGPT.
Where these numbers come from
PyPI: hermes-agent. GitHub: NousResearch/hermes-agent. Homebrew: hermes-agent. Wikipedia: Hermes Agent. See data sources for how each one is collected.
Product facts and pricing were checked against: github.com, raw.githubusercontent.com, en.wikipedia.org, pypi.org, formulae.brew.sh, hub.docker.com, discord.com.