# Hermes Agent vs Lindy

> Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) to Lindy's 32.3 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-lindy
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-lindy.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-lindy.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-lindy.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 Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

- 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
- Lindy: grade F, 32.3/100, rank #968 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lindy.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lindy.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

### 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 24
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 32
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 43
- Security & auth, 75 against 49
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 9
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 52

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- 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

### Lindy (F)

Good for: Lindy suits a person or small team that lives in Slack and Google or Microsoft mail and wants briefs, drafts, scheduling and meeting notes done on a schedule.

Watch for: The integrations page says approval settings apply in shared Slack threads only. Web chat, Slack direct messages, iMessage and SMS are not covered, and reads are never covered.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Hermes Agent | Lindy | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 24 | Hermes Agent +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 32 | Hermes Agent +48 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 43 | Hermes Agent +37 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 75 | 49 | Hermes Agent +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | Hermes Agent +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 9 | Hermes Agent +75 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 52 | Hermes Agent +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **67.9 · B** | **32.3 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Hermes Agent | Lindy |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | Nous Research | Crivello Corp (doing business as Lindy) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Lindy's Terms of Service. No source is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-11 | 2025-10-21 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-28 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 253k stars | none |

## 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.

**Lindy.** Lindy keeps what it remembers in files the owner can read and edit, and publishes credit prices. Its approval setting applies in shared Slack threads only, so writes asked for by direct message, text or web chat run unasked, which its pricing page does not say. It has no status page, and its changelog stops in October 2025.

## 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`

### Lindy

1. Treat a request sent by direct message, text or web chat as unguarded. Approval prompts appear in shared Slack threads only.
2. Run a routine as a dry run before turning it on. A dry run reads real data and sends, posts and writes nothing.
3. Turn off unused tools after adding an MCP server. Every supported tool arrives switched on, and a large server adds more than a hundred.
4. Expect a billed seat for anyone who mentions Lindy in Slack. A teammate who joins that way has seven free days first.
5. Connect only hosted MCP servers on public HTTPS with streamable HTTP, the one kind the docs describe.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Hermes Agent or Lindy?

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Hermes Agent and Lindy open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Hermes Agent or Lindy

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