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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

Hermes Agent vs Dots

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. 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 DotsOpenAI · Platform F28.3/100#973 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 3
  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 41
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 22
  • Security & auth, 75 against 58
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 38
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 31

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

Dots F

Best for A ChatGPT Pro or Enterprise user who wants ongoing work tracked across mail, documents, code and Slack with approval before sends.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

Beta. The admin setting is labelled Use dots (Beta), access is rolling out gradually, and Teams access is an invite-only alpha

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHermes AgentDotsEdge
Reliability16%20573Hermes Agent +54
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28041Hermes Agent +39
Agent ergonomics13%16.28022Hermes Agent +58
Security & auth14%17.57558Hermes Agent +17
Payments & pricing10%12.56010Hermes Agent +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88438Hermes Agent +46
Transparency & trust7%8.86331Hermes Agent +32
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 67.9/100F 28.3/100

Facts side by side

FactHermes AgentDots
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorNous ResearchOpenAI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary hosted service. The governing terms were not read
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-112026-10-09
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 starsnone

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.

Dots

Actions that affect accounts or share information pass an automatic review, and custom rules can require approval or a hand-off. Dots is a beta on Pro plans from $100 a month, and no status page, terms, privacy policy or way to delete individual saved notes was found in the pages we could read.

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

Dots

  1. Say what may be sent. Asking a dot to draft replies does not permit sending them, and an action outside a stated scope needs another decision
  2. Stop three things separately. Pause stops the main task only, delegated tasks stop in Activity and recurring tasks in Scheduled, and completed actions are not undone
  3. Connect each thing separately. A messaging channel grants no access to an inbox, an app or a computer
  4. Sign out of websites and disconnect apps yourself when removing access. Revoking dots access or disconnecting an app does not delete information already obtained
  5. Keep the connected computer online with the ChatGPT app open for local work. Only one personal computer can be connected at a time

Questions

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

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Hermes Agent and Dots open source?

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

Other comparisons with Hermes Agent or Dots

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