head to head · open source
Hermes Agent vs Zola
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars, 57,202 forks, 41,784 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zola has 1,538 stars, 297 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. Hermes Agent leads on adoption by 16,792% (259,804 vs 1,538 stars). Hermes Agent is written in Python under MIT; Zola is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Hermes Agent has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, Zola 19%. 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 | Zola | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 260K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-12-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 57K | ⑂ 297 |
| 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 Zola if
- You want the Zola 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 Zola 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 Zola
Zola zola.chat Zola is the open source chat interface for all your models. Features Multi model support: OpenAI, Mistral, Claude, Gemini, Ollama (local models) Bring your own API key (BYOK) support via OpenRouter File uploads Clean, responsive UI with light/dark themes Built with Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, and prompt kit Open source and self hostable Customizable: user system prompt, multiple layout options Local AI with Ollama: Run models locally with automatic model detection Full MCP support (wip) Quick Start Option 1: With OpenAI (Cloud) Option 2: With Ollama (Local) Zola will automatically detect your local…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hermes Agent or Zola more popular?
Hermes Agent has 259,804 GitHub stars and Zola has 1,538. Hermes Agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hermes Agent and Zola free?
Both are open source. Hermes Agent is licensed under MIT and Zola under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hermes Agent and Zola?
Hermes Agent is written in Python and Zola 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 Zola?
Choose Hermes Agent if you want the larger community (259,804 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Zola if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.