head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs Orkas
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Orkas has 7,723 stars, 482 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 3,264% (259,804 vs 7,723 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; Orkas is written in JavaScript under MIT. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, Orkas 6%. 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 | Orkas | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 482 |
| 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 Orkas if
- You want the Orkas feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Orkas 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 Orkas
Orkas Command a team of AI agents from one desktop chat — not one chatbot. Orkas is an open source, local first multi agent desktop app. Describe a goal; its Commander plans the work, handles the general parts itself, and coordinates specialist agents in parallel or in sequence. Nine specialist agents ship with the app , ready the moment you launch it, out of 30 in the marketplace. Bring your own model keys — Claude · OpenAI · Gemini · DeepSeek · Kimi · GLM · Qwen · MiniMax · Doubao. macOS · Windows · Linux. English · 简体中文 You: "Research the top 5 competitors, write it up, and turn it into a deck." Orkas: the…
read the full Orkas overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or Orkas more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and Orkas has 7,723. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and Orkas free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and Orkas under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and Orkas?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and Orkas in JavaScript. 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 Orkas?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Orkas if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.