head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs Gemini-API
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Gemini-API has 3,781 stars, 593 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 26 days ago. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 6,771% (259,804 vs 3,781 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; Gemini-API is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, Gemini-API 16%. Hermes Agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, 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 | Gemini-API | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 593 |
| 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 Gemini-API if
- You want the Gemini-API feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Gemini-API 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 Gemini-API
Gemini API A reverse engineered asynchronous Python wrapper for the Google Gemini web app (formerly Bard). Features Persistent Cookies Automatically refreshes cookies in background. Optimized for always on services. Image Generation Natively supports generating and editing images with natural language. Video & Audio Generation Supports generating videos and audio/music content natively. Deep Research Full deep research workflow with plan creation, status polling, and result retrieval. System Prompt Supports customizing the model's system prompt with Gemini Gems. Extension Support Supports generating content with…
read the full Gemini-API overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or Gemini-API more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and Gemini-API has 3,781. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and Gemini-API free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and Gemini-API under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and Gemini-API?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and Gemini-API in Python. 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 Gemini-API?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Gemini-API if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.