Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw

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

Free plan · from $20/mo

OpenClaw

Open-source personal AI agent you run yourself and message in chat

Free

Where they differ

Hermes Agent starts at $20 per month for the optional Nous Portal Plus tier; the agent is free. OpenClaw is free.
Only OpenClaw lists iOS and Android apps.

In commonFree planWebmacOSWindowsLinuxOpen sourceSelf-hostableChat assistantWorkflow automationAI agents

	Hermes Agent	OpenClaw
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 MIT licensed, with no paid version or hosted tier. You supply the machine it runs on and your own model access, which the model provider bills separately.
Free trial	None listed	None listed
Web
macOS
Windows
Linux
iOS
Android
Made by	Nous Research, Inc.	OpenClaw Foundation
Price read from	hermes-agent.nousresearch.com	openclaw.ai
Checked	Oct 5, 2026	Oct 5, 2026

Hermes Agent

OpenClaw

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.

OpenClaw

There is no hosted service: you install, run and update the Gateway yourself on a computer or server.
The software is free, but model usage is billed by whichever provider you connect, through an API key or an existing subscription.
The iOS and Android apps are companion nodes and need a Gateway running on another machine.
The macOS desktop app requires macOS 15 or later, and the Linux desktop app is x64 only.

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.

OpenClaw

Self-hosted Gateway: One Gateway process on your own machine or server handles sessions, routing and channel connections. Desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux install it for you.
Chat channels: Message the agent from WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, iMessage and other channels, 29 in all, in direct messages and group chats.
Bring your own model: Works with hosted providers such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, with gateways such as OpenRouter, and with local models through Ollama or LM Studio.
Persistent memory: Remembers preferences, projects and people from one conversation to the next, with state stored on your machine rather than in a vendor cloud.
System access and sandboxing: Can browse the web, fill in forms, read and write files and run shell commands, with a choice between full access and a sandbox.
Skills, plugins and automation: Skills and plugins extend the agent, and it can write its own skills. Cron jobs, hooks and webhooks run work on a schedule or in response to events.

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.

OpenClaw

OpenClaw (MIT licensed)Free
The complete product: Gateway, desktop and mobile apps, chat channels and plugins. Model usage is billed separately by the provider you connect.