head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs pentestagent
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentestagent has 3,232 stars, 644 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 7,938% (259,804 vs 3,232 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; pentestagent is written in Python under MIT. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, pentestagent 20%. 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, ai-agents, 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 | pentestagent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 644 |
| 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 pentestagent if
- You want the pentestagent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pentestagent 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 pentestagent
PentestAgent AI Penetration Testing Requirements Python 3.10+ API key for OpenAI, Anthropic, or other LiteLLM supported provider Install Configure Create .env in the project root: Or for OpenAI: Any LiteLLM supported model works. Using a relay / custom API base Point PentestAgent at any OpenAI compatible endpoint via OPENAI API BASE : For Anthropic compatible endpoints use ANTHROPIC API BASE instead. See .env.example for full provider notes and embedding options. Run Docker Run tools inside a Docker container for isolation and pre installed pentesting tools. Option 1: Pull pre built image (fastest) Option 2…
read the full pentestagent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or pentestagent more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and pentestagent has 3,232. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and pentestagent free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and pentestagent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and pentestagent?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and pentestagent 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 pentestagent?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pentestagent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.