head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs nod
Hermes Agent has 262,937 GitHub stars, 59,177 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nod has 794 stars, 98 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 33,015% (262,937 vs 794 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; nod is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Hermes Agent has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, nod 12%. Hermes Agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agent, anthropic, 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 | nod | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 263K | ★ 794 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-12 | 2026-11-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 59K | ⑂ 98 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Hermes Agent if
- You weight community size — 263K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nod if
- You want the nod feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nod 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 nod
It chases invoices, preps your calls and cancels trials, on real websites. It runs on your machine with the model you choose, and asks before it acts for you. macOS 14+ (Apple silicon or Intel ) · Windows 11 preview · Free and open source · ChatGPT Plus or Pro, or an AI key It gets on with the work across Gmail, Calendar, Slack, Notion, and the web, and asks before it speaks for you. Every morning, Nod reads your threads, your calendar, and the client's latest news, then writes a one page brief for each call. It drafts the reply you owe from your own pricing sheet, and sends it only after you say yes. It checks…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or nod more popular?
Hermes Agent has 262,937 GitHub stars and nod has 794. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and nod free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and nod under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and nod?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and nod 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 nod?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (262,937 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nod if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.