Hermes Agent vs NanoClaw
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Hermes Agent
Open-source AI agent with persistent memory and a messaging gateway
Where they differ
- Hermes Agent starts at $20 per month for the optional Nous Portal Plus tier; the agent is free. NanoClaw is free.
- Only Hermes Agent lists a web app.
- NanoClaw also covers templates.
At a glance
| Hermes Agent | NanoClaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | $20 per month for the optional Nous Portal Plus tier; the agent is free | Free |
| Free plan | Hermes Agent is free and open source under the MIT license. You connect your own model provider, or a free Nous Portal account that is limited to free models. | The whole product is free and open source under the MIT license. You supply the computer it runs on and your own AI provider account, which the provider bills separately. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Made by | Nous Research, Inc. | NanoCo |
| Price read from | hermes-agent.nousresearch.com | nanoclaw.dev |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Hermes Agent
- Developers who want an agent on their own machine, server or VPS
- Reaching one agent from Telegram, Discord, Slack or WhatsApp
- Unattended scheduled jobs such as reports and briefings
NanoClaw
- People who want a personal agent running on hardware they control
- Developers who want a small codebase they can read and fork
- Giving an agent shell access inside a container instead of on the host
Worth knowing
Hermes Agent
- The agent is free, but paid models cost extra: your own provider's rates, or Nous Portal tiers from $20 a month.
- Desktop apps are offered for macOS and Windows; on Linux the install is through the terminal.
- The platform support page lists no iOS version, and Android runs only through a prerelease Termux package.
- Hermes Cloud needs $2 of Nous credit or an active subscription to deploy, and bills inference separately from the instance.
NanoClaw
- There is no hosted version: you install it yourself with git and a terminal, and the computer must stay on for the agent to respond.
- The software is free, but hosted model usage is billed by the provider you connect, through a subscription or an API key.
- Docker is the only supported container runtime, and Windows is supported only through WSL2.
- The site lists no graphical app of its own: you talk to it in the terminal or through the messaging channels you connect.
Key features
Hermes Agent
- Messaging gateway
- One gateway connects the agent to Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix, email, Microsoft Teams and other platforms, more than 20 in all, sharing a single memory.
- Memory and self-written skills
- The agent keeps memory across sessions, creates reusable skills from work it has done and revises them in use. Skills follow the open agentskills.io format.
- Scheduled automations
- Built-in cron accepts natural-language schedules for reports, backups and briefings and delivers the results to any connected platform.
- Subagents
- Isolated subagents with their own conversations and terminals handle parallel workstreams without filling the main agent's context.
- Terminal backends and sandboxing
- Commands run locally or in Docker, over SSH, or on Daytona, Singularity, Modal or Vercel Sandbox, with command approval and container isolation.
- Nous Portal and Hermes Cloud
- A Portal subscription supplies credits for 200+ models and hosted web search, image generation, text-to-speech and browser tools. Hermes Cloud hosts an always-on agent, billed daily.
NanoClaw
- Messaging channels
- Talk to agents in the terminal or connect WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, Microsoft Teams and other channels, each installed on demand with an /add- skill.
- Container isolation
- Every active session runs in its own unprivileged Docker container and sees only the files you mount, so shell commands run inside the container rather than on your host.
- Credential vault
- By default agents never hold raw API keys: outbound requests pass through OneCLI's Agent Vault, which injects credentials at request time and applies per-agent policies and rate limits.
- Scheduled tasks
- Ask an agent in chat for a reminder or a recurring job and it creates a task on a cron-style schedule. Tasks can also be listed, paused and cancelled with the ncl admin CLI.
- Choice of model provider
- Claude is the default, Codex can be chosen during setup, and OpenCode or local Ollama models can be added later. Each agent group can use a different provider.
- Templates and skills
- A template stamps out a prebuilt agent with a persona, skills, MCP servers and paused recurring tasks, while skills add channels, providers or tools to your own fork.
Plans
Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent$0
The complete MIT-licensed agent, run on your own machine or server with a model provider of your choice.
Nous Portal Free$0
Free models only, standard rate limits and no monthly credits.
Nous Portal Plus$20
per month
$22 of monthly credits (a 10% bonus) with a $10 rollover cap, 200+ models, hosted tool usage and high rate limits.
Nous Portal Super$100
per month
$110 of monthly credits with a $50 rollover cap, plus the same models, hosted tools and rate limits as Plus.
Nous Portal Ultra$200
per month
$220 of monthly credits with a $100 rollover cap, plus the same models, hosted tools and rate limits as Plus.
Hermes CloudFrom $0.56
per day while running, billed from Nous credit
Optional always-on hosting: Medium is $0.56 a day and Large $1.09 while running, $0.03 a day stopped. Inference and tool usage are billed separately.
NanoClaw
NanoClaw (MIT licensed)Free
The complete self-hosted agent, with channels, providers and tools added as skills. Model usage is billed by the provider you connect, unless you run local Ollama models.
