head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs LobsterAI
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LobsterAI has 6,162 stars, 978 forks, 601 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 4,116% (259,804 vs 6,162 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; LobsterAI is written in TypeScript under MIT. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, LobsterAI 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-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 | LobsterAI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 978 |
| 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 LobsterAI if
- You want the LobsterAI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and LobsterAI 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 LobsterAI
LobsterAI English · 中文 All scenario office assistant Agent. The first open source desktop grade Agent among major Chinese tech companies, built by NetEase Youdao. Features · Developing · Community Download LobsterAI LobsterAI is a desktop Agent that can operate in your real working environment: local files, terminal commands, browser workflows, documents, spreadsheets, slides, IM channels, scheduled jobs, and project workspaces. Cowork is the LobsterAI product/session layer. OpenClaw is the runtime and gateway underneath it. That split lets LobsterAI keep local persistence, permissions, UI state, artifacts…
read the full LobsterAI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or LobsterAI more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and LobsterAI has 6,162. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and LobsterAI free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and LobsterAI under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and LobsterAI?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and LobsterAI in TypeScript. 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 LobsterAI?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose LobsterAI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.