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Head to head · Assistants that remember you · October 2026 research run

Atticus vs Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Atticus's 42.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Atticus leads on reliability. Both do assistants that remember you.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 875 assistants comparisons

AtticusSaarthurR (Saarth Ranka) · Platform E42.9/100#974 of 1094 Hermes AgentNous Research · Agent harness B67.9/100#254 of 1094

Which one, for what

Atticus E

Best for A person on macOS 26 with a Claude Pro or Max plan who wants voice control of apps, windows, files and the browser.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 68 against 57

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Hermes Agent loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No API, MCP server or documented command an outside agent can call

Hermes Agent B

Best for A technical owner who wants one always-on agent across chat apps with memory and scheduled jobs, on their own machine or a small server, with any model.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 15
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 9
  • Security & auth, 75 against 49
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 51
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 56

Watch for

The default terminal backend runs commands on the host, and the default smart mode lets an auxiliary model approve commands it rates low-risk

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAtticusHermes AgentEdge
Reliability16%206857Atticus +11
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21580Hermes Agent +65
Agent ergonomics13%16.2980Hermes Agent +71
Security & auth14%17.54975Hermes Agent +26
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85184Hermes Agent +33
Transparency & trust7%8.85663Hermes Agent +7
Negative events≤150-3
TotalE 42.9/100B 67.9/100

Facts side by side

FactAtticusHermes Agent
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorSaarthurR (Saarth Ranka)Nous Research
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingYour planFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-142026-10-11
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity163 stars253k stars

Verdicts

Atticus

Atticus runs a person's Mac by voice on their existing Claude or Devin plan, with a sandboxed safe mode and a local log of every command. It has no API, MCP server or documented command for another agent, it is five days old, and it rebuilds itself from the main branch every six hours by default.

Hermes Agent

Card payments always ask first and are refused in unattended sessions, and the messaging gateway denies every sender until an allowlist is set. Shell commands run on the host by default with a model judging risk, and sending mail through the Google Workspace skill is held back only by an instruction to the model.

Before you call either

Atticus

  1. Don't plan to call Atticus from another agent. It takes requests only from its own shortcut and typing box
  2. If a user runs Atticus beside you, expect it to move windows and type into apps on the same Mac
  3. Point a user who wants pinned versions to Settings > About & Updates to turn off self-update

Hermes Agent

  1. Set approvals.mode: manual before giving it real accounts. The default smart lets an auxiliary model approve commands
  2. Run the gateway with terminal.backend: docker or the project's Docker image when it reads mail, web pages or group chats
  3. Set memory.write_approval: true and skills.write_approval: true to review what it saves about the owner
  4. Leave approvals.cron_mode and approvals.unattended_mode at deny for scheduled and webhook runs
  5. Set TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS or the matching allowlist per channel. Never set GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS=true

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Atticus or Hermes Agent?

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Atticus's 42.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Atticus leads on reliability.

Are Atticus and Hermes Agent open source?

Yes. Atticus is open source (MIT). Hermes Agent is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Atticus or Hermes Agent

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