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Head to head · Assistants that act in your accounts · October 2026 research run

Hermes Agent vs Tomo

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Tomo's 13.1 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistants that act in your accounts.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 314 assistants comparisons

Hermes AgentNous Research · Agent harness B67.9/100#244 of 993 TomoMapo Labs, Inc. · Platform F13.1/100#989 of 993

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 15
  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 0
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 0
  • Security & auth, 75 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 54
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 47

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

Tomo F

Best for People who want accountability, check-ins and reminders by text, including in group chats.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHermes AgentTomoEdge
Reliability16%205715Hermes Agent +42
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2800Hermes Agent +80
Agent ergonomics13%16.2800Hermes Agent +80
Security & auth14%17.5750Hermes Agent +75
Payments & pricing10%12.56010Hermes Agent +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88454Hermes Agent +30
Transparency & trust7%8.86347Hermes Agent +16
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 67.9/100F 13.1/100

Facts side by side

FactHermes AgentTomo
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorNous ResearchMapo Labs, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceMITClosed service under Tomo's Terms of Service (Mapo Labs, Inc., last updated 24 September 2026).
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-112026-09-29
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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.

Tomo

Tomo is a hosted personal AI over iMessage and an iOS app, centred on goals, check-ins and reminders, with regular iOS releases since April 2026. No outside agent can call it, there's no free plan, and no status page, security contact or subprocessor list was found.

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

Tomo

  1. Don't plan to call Tomo from another agent. It answers only the owner's iMessage, group chats it's added to and the iOS app.
  2. Tell the owner that adding Tomo to a group chat applies its terms to every participant.

Questions

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

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Tomo's 13.1 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Hermes Agent and Tomo open source?

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

Other comparisons with Hermes Agent or Tomo

Disclosure

Tomo competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.

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