# GAIA vs Hermes Agent

> Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) to GAIA's 49.5 (D) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-hermes-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-hermes-agent.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-hermes-agent.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-hermes-agent.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-12

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against GAIA's 49.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. GAIA leads on reliability. Both do assistant proactive.

- GAIA: grade D, 49.5/100, rank #813 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gaia.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gaia.json
- Hermes Agent: grade B, 67.9/100, rank #244 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hermes-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hermes-agent.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 190 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### GAIA (D)

Good for: It suits one person who wants mail triage, meeting briefs, todos and scheduled workflows from one assistant reachable on WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or iMessage, and who wants to read the source.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 57

Watch for: The default approval mode in the source is `always_allow`, commented as nothing gated, while the privacy policy and the 26 August release notes say destructive actions wait for approval.

### Hermes Agent (B)

Good 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 51
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 54
- Security & auth, 75 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 78

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

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

| Category | Weight | GAIA | Hermes Agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 57 | GAIA +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 80 | Hermes Agent +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 80 | Hermes Agent +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 75 | Hermes Agent +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | Hermes Agent +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 84 | Hermes Agent +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 63 | Hermes Agent +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **49.5 · D** | **67.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GAIA | Hermes Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | The Experience Company | Nous Research |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth | None |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-14 | 2026-10-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-14 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-07 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 308 stars | 253k stars |

## Verdicts

**GAIA.** GAIA's source is public, so its approval gate, memory store and token handling can be read. Three approval modes and per-tool overrides exist, but the default mode in the source runs every action unasked, which the privacy policy and release notes do not say. Pro costs $30 a month and self-hosting is limited to noncommercial use.

**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

### GAIA

1. Set Settings > Approvals to Always ask or Auto before connecting mail. The default in the source runs every action, including send and delete, without asking.
2. Expect no public API on the hosted service. The backend turns off its OpenAPI document in production, so reach GAIA through its apps, bots or CLI.
3. Check the plan before relying on the hosted service. The README and docs describe a Free plan, and the pricing page says GAIA is a paid product.
4. For self-hosting, prepare Docker, Node.js 20, a WorkOS account and a model key first, and confirm the use is noncommercial under the licence.
5. Add outside tools as MCP servers by URL on the Integrations page. GAIA asks before adding a server in every approval mode.

### 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, GAIA or Hermes Agent?

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against GAIA's 49.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. GAIA leads on reliability.

### Are GAIA and Hermes Agent open source?

No open-source release is listed for GAIA. Hermes Agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-hermes-agent.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-hermes-agent.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "gaia", "b": "hermes-agent"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare gaia hermes-agent`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gaia.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hermes-agent.json

## Other comparisons with GAIA or Hermes Agent

- [AstrBot vs GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-gaia.md)
- [AstrBot vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [CowAgent vs GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-gaia.md)
- [CowAgent vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [GAIA vs Gemini Spark](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-gemini-spark.md)
- [GAIA vs Grok Bot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-grok-bot.md)
- [GAIA vs Haven](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-haven.md)
- [GAIA vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-instinct.md)
- [GAIA vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-leon.md)
- [GAIA vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-lindy.md)
- [GAIA vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-nanobot.md)
- [GAIA vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [GAIA vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-openclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-poke.md)
- [GAIA vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [GAIA vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [Grok Bot vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [Haven vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-instinct.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-leon.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-lindy.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-poke.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-zo-computer.md)