# Hermes Agent vs Poke

> Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) to Poke's 37.6 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-poke
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-poke.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-poke.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-poke.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 Poke's 37.6 (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
- Poke: grade F, 37.6/100, rank #955 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/poke.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/poke.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 51
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 42
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 30
- Security & auth, 75 against 24
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 31
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 58

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

### Poke (F)

Good for: One person who wants an assistant in their text messages that reads and drafts mail, manages a calendar and reaches other apps through MCP.

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

Watch for: No documented setting for which actions need approval before Poke sends, deletes or spends. Release notes mention email draft approval only in passing


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Hermes Agent | Poke | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 51 | Hermes Agent +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 42 | Hermes Agent +38 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 30 | Hermes Agent +50 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 75 | 24 | Hermes Agent +51 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | Hermes Agent +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 31 | Hermes Agent +53 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 58 | Hermes Agent +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.9 · B** | **37.6 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Hermes Agent | Poke |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | Nous Research | The Interaction Company of California Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The `poke` npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-11 | 2026-06-25 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-03-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-11 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| 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.

**Poke.** Hosted assistant that answers in Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS and acts in Gmail, Outlook, calendars and MCP servers. Plan prices and a status page are public. No approval settings, credential storage, model providers or retention periods are documented, and customer content trains models unless Maximum Privacy is selected.

## 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`

### Poke

1. POST JSON to `https://poke.com/api/v1/inbound/api-message` with a Bearer key from Kitchen. Legacy `pk_` keys work only on the deprecated `/api/v1/inbound-sms/webhook`
2. Expect only `{"success": true}` back. Poke's answer goes to the owner's message thread, not to the caller
3. Do not retry a POST blindly. No idempotency key is documented, and a repeated message may make Poke act twice
4. Treat an API key as full access to the owner's mail, calendar and integrations. Create one key per automation and revoke it when done
5. Avoid the prefilled integration link with `apiKey` in the query string for real secrets. Enter the key in the form or use `npx poke@latest mcp add -k`

## Questions

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

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Hermes Agent and Poke open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Hermes Agent or Poke

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