head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs n8n
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. n8n has 209,375 stars, 61,361 forks, 1,143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 24% (259,804 vs 209,375 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; n8n is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, n8n 29%. 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 | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 209K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 61K |
| 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 n8n if
- You want the n8n feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and n8n 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 n8n
n8n – The Platform for AI Agents and Workflow Automation Fair code platform to build and deploy AI agents and workflows. Combine a visual canvas with custom code, run it self hosted or in the cloud, and connect to 1500+ integrations. AI automation you can trust with real work, from prototype to production. Key Capabilities AI Native Automation Platform : Build and operationalize AI workflows and multi step agents using your own data, models, and tools Model Flexibility, No Lock In : Connect to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or open source models and switch providers without changing your architecture From Prototype…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or n8n more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and n8n has 209,375. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and n8n free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT, and n8n has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and n8n?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and n8n 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 n8n?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose n8n if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.