Hermes Agent
Open source agent from Nous Research (MIT licence, over 245,000 GitHub stars in September 2026). Where it differs from Claude Code: it learns on the job. After a complex task it turns the work into a reusable skill that it refines with each use, curates its own memory and recalls past conversations. It runs on a server rather than your laptop, takes orders from a messaging app (Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp) and runs scheduled routines. Built for long tasks that need memory: calendars, monitoring, long-form writing. It sits on a small rented server (VPS) that never shuts down: one creator quotes 5.49 euros a month at Hostinger on a two-year term, then 11.99, a host's price to recheck. The agent signs in with a ChatGPT account through OpenAI Codex, no API key, according to the official documentation, and takes orders from Telegram or Discord while your computer is off.
Strengths
- Self-improving, automatically extracts reusable skills every session
- Open source from Nous Research, very active ecosystem (over 245,000 stars in September 2026)
- Oriented toward long-running memory tasks (agendas, monitoring) where Claude Code stays session-bound
Limitations
- Weaker than Claude Code on pure code, not a drop-in IDE-side replacement
- Still-young ecosystem, fewer docs, plugins, stabilized conventions
Best for
- Long-running agentic workflows where cross-session learning matters more than immediate code quality
- Teams wanting an open-source harness without Anthropic vendor lock-in