head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs AnythingLLM
Hermes Agent has 259,569 GitHub stars, 57,127 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. AnythingLLM has 67,836 stars, 7,652 forks, 311 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 283% (259,569 vs 67,836 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript under MIT. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, AnythingLLM 11%. Hermes Agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, hermes-agent, llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Hermes Agent | AnythingLLM | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 68K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 7.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Hermes Agent if
- You weight community size — 260K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick AnythingLLM if
- You want the AnythingLLM feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and AnythingLLM fits your workflow better
About Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent ☤ Hermes Agent Hermes Desktop The self improving AI agent built by Nous Research. It's the only agent with a built in learning loop — it creates skills from experience, improves them during use, nudges itself to persist knowledge, searches its own past conversations, and builds a deepening model of who you are across sessions. Run it on a $5 VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure that costs nearly nothing when idle. It's not tied to your laptop — talk to it from Telegram while it works on a cloud VM. Use any model you want — Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI, your own endpoint, and many…
read the full Hermes Agent overview →
About AnythingLLM
[!NOTE] We are also working on Open Computer which gives an entire computer environment for AI Agents to use. This will bring AnythingLLM's agent capabilities to a new level and a novel UX paradigm for AI Agent use. ⭐ Star the repo to stay updated! AnythingLLM: The all in one AI app you were looking for. Chat with your docs, use AI Agents, hyper configurable, multi user, & no frustrating setup required. Docs Hosted Instance English · 简体中文 · 日本語 👉 AnythingLLM for desktop (Mac, Windows, & Linux)! Download Now Chat with your docs. Automate complex workflows with AI Agents. Hyper configurable, multi user ready…
read the full AnythingLLM overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or AnythingLLM more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,569 GitHub stars and AnythingLLM has 67,836. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and AnythingLLM free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and AnythingLLM under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and AnythingLLM?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and AnythingLLM in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Hermes Agent or AnythingLLM?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,569 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose AnythingLLM if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.