head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs kotaemon
Hermes Agent has 246,492 GitHub stars, 51,615 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,769 stars, 2,156 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 857% (246,492 vs 25,769 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Hermes Agent has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. Hermes Agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 246K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 52K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Hermes Agent if
- You weight community size — 246K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kotaemon if
- You want the kotaemon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and kotaemon fits your workflow better
About Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent is a desktop AI agent developed by Nous Research that maintains persistent memory and self improving capabilities across sessions and platforms. It operates as a local first, cross platform interface for LLMs, integrating with multiple model providers and deployment environments without vendor lock in. The agent implements a closed learning loop where it curates its own memory, creates and refines skills from experience, and supports cross session recall via full text search and summarization.
read the full Hermes Agent overview →
About kotaemon
kotaemon is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed Python project that provides a clean and customizable retrieval augmented generation (RAG) UI for chatting with documents. It sits in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically under AI interaction and interfaces, and is built on Gradio so that the interface itself can be extended or modified. The README frames the project as serving two distinct audiences at once: end users who want to do question answering over their own files, and developers who want to build their own RAG pipeline on top of the framework.
read the full kotaemon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or kotaemon more popular?
Hermes Agent has 246,492 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,769. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and kotaemon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and kotaemon?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and kotaemon 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 kotaemon?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (246,492 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.