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Head to head · Assistants reached by message · October 2026 research run

Hermes Agent vs Zapia

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Zapia's 17.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistants reached by message.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 834 assistants comparisons

Hermes AgentNous Research · Agent harness B67.9/100#244 of 1010 ZapiaBrainlogic AI S.A.S. · Platform F17.3/100#995 of 1010

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 3
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 56

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

Zapia F

Best for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking users who want an assistant over their mail, calendar, Drive and WhatsApp in an app.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint, and the terms forbid unauthorised automated connections.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHermes AgentZapiaEdge
Reliability16%205715Hermes Agent +42
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2800Hermes Agent +80
Agent ergonomics13%16.2800Hermes Agent +80
Security & auth14%17.5753Hermes Agent +72
Payments & pricing10%12.56030Hermes Agent +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88456Hermes Agent +28
Transparency & trust7%8.86359Hermes Agent +4
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 67.9/100F 17.3/100

Facts side by side

FactHermes AgentZapia
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorNous ResearchBrainlogic AI S.A.S.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITClosed service under Zapia's terms and conditions (Brainlogic AI SAS). No date was found on the terms.
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-112026-10-12
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.

Zapia

Zapia is a personal assistant app for iOS, Android and the web with a free plan that isn't a trial, weekly iOS releases and explicit confirmation before anything that writes. No outside agent can call it, and no status page, security contact or hosting location 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

Zapia

  1. Don't plan to call Zapia from another agent. It answers only in its own app and on the web, and the terms forbid unauthorised automated access.
  2. Tell the owner that Pro and Ultra trials become paid after 7 days unless cancelled in the app store.

Questions

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

Hermes Agent scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Zapia's 17.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Hermes Agent and Zapia open source?

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

Other comparisons with Hermes Agent or Zapia

Disclosure

Zapia 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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