head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs Kai
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kai has 1,329 stars, 210 forks, 127 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 19,449% (259,804 vs 1,329 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; Kai is written in Kotlin under Apache-2.0. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, Kai 16%. Hermes Agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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 | Kai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 210 |
| 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 Kai if
- You want the Kai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and Kai 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 Kai
Kai 9000 An open source AI assistant with persistent memory that runs on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, and Web . Website Documentation Sponsor: Atlas Cloud Installation Homebrew (macOS): AUR (Arch Linux): Winget (Windows): Direct Downloads AI That Builds Screens, Not Just Text Kai 9000's Interactive UI lets the AI generate full interactive screens — quizzes, dashboards, recipes, brainstorms, and more. Navigate by tapping buttons instead of scrolling through chat. Features Persistent memory — Kai remembers important details across conversations and uses them automatically Customizable soul — Define the AI's…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or Kai more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and Kai has 1,329. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and Kai free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and Kai under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and Kai?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and Kai in Kotlin. 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 Kai?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Kai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.