Hermes Agent vs Poke

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

Poke

• People who would rather text an assistant than open another app
• Handling email, calendar and reminders from a message thread
• Developers who want to add their own tools through MCP

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.

Poke

• Poke has no app of its own: it works through Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram or RCS, with settings managed on the website.
• Email support covers Gmail and Outlook only; Poke says it has no immediate plans for iCloud or Yahoo Mail.
• The Free plan has a small usage allowance, and background automations and frontier models start at Pro.
• Poke Human is included only with Ultra at $199 a month, and expenses paid on your behalf are deducted from your credit balance.

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.

Poke

Works inside messaging apps

You use Poke by texting it in Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram or RCS, including by voice message, and you can choose which channel it texts you on.

Email and calendar

Reads, searches and drafts email and schedules meetings, with full support for Gmail and Outlook inboxes, calendars and contact sync.

Recipes

Recipes set up integrations and automations in one step and can be shared with others. The directory covers apps such as Notion, GitHub, Linear and Oura.

Reminders and proactive updates

Creates reminders and gets a head start on tasks from a text, then draws on connected services and its memory to message you when something needs attention.

Custom integrations and API

Developers can add custom integrations through MCP servers, and the Poke API lets scripts, webhooks and other tools send messages to your assistant.

Poke Human

On Ultra, real-world tasks such as restaurant reservations, phone calls and orders are dispatched to a person, who sees only the details needed for that task.

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.

Poke

• Free$0

  Connect apps, email and calendar with a small usage allowance; when it runs out, Poke answers in a lighter mode until it refills.

• Pro$19

  per month, billed monthly

  Frontier models for complex tasks, automations that run in the background, higher rate limits and priority support.

• Ultra$199

  per month, billed monthly

  Frontier models on every action, a monthly credit pool with pay-as-you-go top-ups, Poke Human and highest-priority support.