Hermes Agent vs Octop
Hermes Agent (Nous Research) and Octop (Tencent Cloud) side by side on public data, as of Oct 21, 2026.
Hermes Agent has 24.3x the GitHub stars of Octop (256K against 10.5K). Hermes Agent shipped 19 stable releases in the past 90 days. Octop shipped 13 stable releases in the past 90 days.
Which should you choose?
Choose Hermes Agent if
- you want to use your own model API key
- you want to switch between model providers (3 documented against 0)
- you want to run it unattended in scripts or CI
- you want subagents or several agents working in parallel
- you prefer the more widely used tool, with more docs and answers around (Gid Score 63 against 48)
- you want frequent updates (19 stable releases in 90 days against 13)
Built from documented features, official prices, status pages and usage data on this page; it does not judge output quality.
Side-by-side numbers
| Metric | Hermes Agent | Octop |
|---|---|---|
| Gid Score | 63 | 48 |
| Usage data as of | Oct 21 | Oct 21 |
| Rank by Gid Score | #12 | #50 |
| Downloads, last 7 days | 184K | — |
| Downloads, 7-day change | — | — |
| Downloads, 30-day change | — | — |
| VS Code installs | — | — |
| Marketplace rating | — | — |
| GitHub stars | 256K | 10.5K |
| Homebrew installs, 30 days | 3,315 | — |
| Hacker News mentions, 30 days | 32 | 0 |
| Latest stable release | 0.22.2 · 6d ago | 1.0.2 · 3d ago |
| Stable releases, 90 days | 19 | 13 |
| Terminal-Bench (best run) | — | — |
| Price | Free (OSS) | Free (OSS) |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| First released | February 2026 | July 2026 |
| Interfaces | CLI, Messaging apps, Desktop | — |
| Models | Any model: Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI and custom endpoints |
Trends
Hermes Agent
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.
Pricing: Free and open source (MIT); users pay their chosen model providers (Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI or custom endpoints).
Latest release 0.22.2:
- The gateway starts after a reboot again. After a restart, Linux can hand an early PID to an unrelated process, and the gateway could mistake it for a running gateway, so a supervised gateway…
- Long local-model turns survive on laptops. Local requests always stream with prompt-reading progress (shown in the status line), stall timers skip time the machine was asleep, a recovered local…
- Release: split the Microsoft Store bundle into its own windows-store lane (f9d8a740) — @ethernet8023
- Agent: add nemotron super 3.5 default parameters (c59d2994) — @elisam0
Octop
A smarter, self-hosted AI assistant — multi-user, multi-agent.
Pricing: Open source under the MIT licence; check the website for any paid hosted plans.
Latest release 1.0.2:
- 两台 Octop 可以连起来用：通过云端协同使用对方的专家，能聊天，也能改对方工作区里的文件
- 专家可以组队。主持人负责分派任务和收尾总结，成员的回复会回到聊天，也会同步到即时通讯
- 新连接器：企查查、OpenAlex、语雀、Obsidian、Agent Mail，以及钉钉命令行（设备码登录后可查通讯录、日程和文档）
- 可以用公司的 LDAP 账号登录。Telegram 机器人可以限定哪些用户能跟它说话
Hermes Agent vs Octop: common questions
Which is more popular, Hermes Agent or Octop?
Hermes Agent has a Gid Score of 63 against 48 for Octop. The score combines package downloads, editor installs, GitHub activity and attention, updated daily.
Do Hermes Agent and Octop support MCP servers?
Hermes Agent documents support for MCP servers; Octop's documentation does not.