# Haven vs Hermes Agent

> Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) to Haven's 22.2 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-hermes-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-hermes-agent.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-hermes-agent.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-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 Haven's 22.2 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

- Haven: grade F, 22.2/100, rank #977 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/haven.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/haven.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

### Haven (F)

Good for: A consumer assistant for one person who wants to phone, text or email it and have it remember them.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Hermes Agent loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No approval setting or list of actions that need confirmation was found on the public pages. The terms say it sends emails, SMS and calls following the user's instructions.

### 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:
- Reliability, 57 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 4
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 6
- Security & auth, 75 against 13
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 35
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 51

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 | Haven | Hermes Agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 57 | Hermes Agent +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 4 | 80 | Hermes Agent +76 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 6 | 80 | Hermes Agent +74 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 13 | 75 | Hermes Agent +62 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | Hermes Agent +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 35 | 84 | Hermes Agent +49 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 63 | Hermes Agent +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **22.2 · F** | **67.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Haven | Hermes Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Hello Haven, Inc. | Nous Research |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Hello Haven's Terms of Service | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-10-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-24 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-24 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | none | 253k stars |

## Verdicts

**Haven.** Haven answers by phone call, text, email and app, is free in beta with no card, and publishes a status page with dated incidents. No public page read says which actions need approval, which accounts it connects or how their tokens are kept, and it names no model provider or sub-processor.

**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

### Haven

1. Haven has no documented API or MCP server. An outside agent can reach it only through the owner's channels (call, SMS, email, app).
2. Do not assume an approval step before Haven sends mail, texts or calls. None is documented on the public pages.
3. Email Haven sends to other people names Hello Haven as sender and says it was sent on the user's behalf, per the terms.
4. Chat messages, history, profile context and uploaded files go to third-party AI model providers that the vendor does not name.
5. Check status.hellohaven.ai before relying on phone or voice. All four published incidents affected those channels.

### 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, Haven or Hermes Agent?

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Haven's 22.2 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Haven and Hermes Agent open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Haven or Hermes Agent

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