head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs u-claw
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. u-claw has 1,760 stars, 418 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 14,662% (259,804 vs 1,760 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; u-claw is written in JavaScript under MIT. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, u-claw 24%. 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 (claude-code, codex), 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 | u-claw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 418 |
| 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 u-claw if
- You want the u-claw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and u-claw 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 u-claw
U Claw（虾盘） 把 AI 工作空间装进 U 盘：插上任意电脑，配置、记忆和工具都跟着走。 下载便携版 · 完整教程 · 从源码制作 · 企业服务 · English [!IMPORTANT] 这不是 U 盘制作工具。这个仓库就是 U 盘的文件骨架：运行一次 setup.sh 补齐运行时，再把整个 portable/ 拷到盘里即可。 三步开始 📺 图文教程：docs/快速上手.md（含真实界面截图，5 步从插 U 盘到开始对话） 1. 从 Releases 下载 Windows 便携版，解压到 U 盘后双击 Windows Start.bat 。 2. 或克隆仓库，在 portable/ 运行 bash setup.sh ，下载 Node.js 与 OpenClaw。 3. 首次启动在本地配置模型 Key；配置只保存在 U 盘的 data/.openclaw/openclaw.json 。 平台支持：Windows ✅（免部署完整包）· macOS ✅ · 可启动 Linux U盘 ✅ —— 详见下方平台支持表。 [!TIP] 👑 同作者新品：U King · AI 装机管家 一键装好 Claude Code / Codex / OpenClaw / Hermes 四大 AI 神器，驱动自动配好——一个 Key 直用 Claude、GPT、DeepSeek、Kimi 等 24+ 全球模型，免翻墙。绿色版仅几…
read the full u-claw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or u-claw more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and u-claw has 1,760. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and u-claw free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and u-claw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and u-claw?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and u-claw 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 u-claw?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose u-claw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.