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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

Hermes Agent vs Leon

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistant proactive.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons

Hermes AgentNous Research · Agent harness B67.9/100#244 of 986 LeonLouis Grenard (Leon AI) · Agent harness E41/100#934 of 986

Which one, for what

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

  • Reliability, 57 against 32
  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 33
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 57
  • Security & auth, 75 against 34
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 15

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

Leon E

Best for A developer who wants a self-hosted assistant with memory, computer use and a local model, and who will read the source.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No tagged release of the core since 1.0.0-beta.8 on 1 May 2023. The 2.0 Developer Preview is installed by cloning the develop branch

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHermes AgentLeonEdge
Reliability16%205732Hermes Agent +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28033Hermes Agent +47
Agent ergonomics13%16.28057Hermes Agent +23
Security & auth14%17.57534Hermes Agent +41
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88415Hermes Agent +69
Transparency & trust7%8.86360Hermes Agent +3
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 67.9/100E 41/100

Facts side by side

FactHermes AgentLeon
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorNous ResearchLouis Grenard (Leon AI)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-112023-05-01
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
Popularity253k stars18k stars

Verdicts

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.

Leon

Connected-app credentials are encrypted per profile and the Gmail connection is read-only. The 2.0 Developer Preview has no tagged release, runs tools and a 30-minute proactive pulse with no approval step, listens on every network interface with client authentication off, and sends telemetry by default.

Before you call either

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

Leon

  1. Clone the develop branch for 2.0. npm install --global @leon-ai/cli and docs.getleon.ai install and describe the legacy 1.0 betas
  2. Set client_interface.auth.enabled: true and a LEON_PROFILE_TOKEN before the machine joins a shared network. The server binds 0.0.0.0
  3. Set telemetry_enabled: false and runtime.pulse_enabled: false in the profile config.yml for an unattended or private run
  4. Use availability.tools.allowed to limit tools. Shell, file writes, computer use and browser control are otherwise available to the agent with no approval prompt
  5. Back up LEON_CONNECTIONS_ENCRYPTION_KEY from the profile .env. Without it the stored connections cannot be read

Questions

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

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Hermes Agent and Leon open source?

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

Other comparisons with Hermes Agent or Leon

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