Facts checked · Nous Research
Hermes Agent alternative: MausBot
Hermes Agent is a built-in MausBot engine: run Hermes with a GUI, rooms, routines and phone apps beside Claude and Codex bots, or use MausBot instead.
Hermes Agent is Nous Research's self-improving open-source agent, reached through chat gateways and run on a server or your PC. MausBot is a chat app of bots, and Hermes is one of its engines: run Hermes with a GUI, next to Claude and Codex bots, with routines, rooms and phone companions, or run MausBot instead of a Hermes gateway.
What Hermes Agent is
Hermes Agent launched on February 25, 2026 and has about 249,000 GitHub stars. It writes its own skills, remembers across sessions, runs cron jobs and subagents, and answers on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, email and more. It runs on Linux, macOS, native Windows and a $5 VPS, with a desktop app since June 2026 and official hosting through Nous Portal's Hermes Cloud.
Launched: February 25, 2026. Sources: Hermes Agent on GitHub; Hermes Agent docs: Windows (native).
Why people look for a Hermes Agent alternative
- It is one agent; profiles give you several isolated ones, not a team in one room.
- Thirty-nine CVEs logged between April and September 2026, and a July attack on a Thai ministry carried out with a Hermes instance running unattended in YOLO mode, as reported.
- Always-on means a server, a gateway and a scheduled task you maintain, or a paid host.
- User reports of self-evaluation that always says success and setup wizards that loop.
Hermes Agent vs MausBot
The Hermes Agent column comes from the vendor's own pages and the press cited above, checked on October 2, 2026. Where the vendor has not said, the cell says so.
| Hermes Agent | MausBot | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | One always-on agent you reach through chat apps | A chat app of bots; Hermes is one engine among several |
| Models | Nous Portal (200+), OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, local | Claude, Codex, Grok, and other CLIs, chosen per bot; switch mid-conversation, including Hermes with the provider you configure |
| Before a shell command runs | Smart, manual or off; --yolo skips it | Hermes's own prompts become Allow / Deny cards when Hermes asks; MausBot cannot add a gate Hermes does not raise |
| Several agents | Profiles: several isolated agents, not a team in one room | As many bots as you like, in group rooms |
| Where it runs | A server, a host, Hermes Cloud, or your PC | Your own machine; or a cloud desktop per bot |
| Always on | Yes, with a gateway you run or pay for | Bots on a cloud computer, or the whole team with npx openmausbot serve; Cloud plans do not run Hermes bots |
| Platforms | Linux, macOS, Windows; Hermes Desktop | macOS, Windows, Ubuntu; iOS and Android companions |
| License, stars | MIT, about 249k | Apache 2.0, about 4k |
What MausBot is
MausBot is a free, open-source chat app where every contact is an AI bot with its own model, its own computer, and its own connected apps. Bots run on the claude, codex, and grok CLIs installed on your own machine, with your existing logins, so one bot can be on Claude and the next on ChatGPT. Shell commands and file edits surface as Allow / Deny cards before they run, bots share group rooms and hand work to each other, and your data stays in ~/.openmausbot on your disk. It is published on GitHub under Apache 2.0, with iOS and Android companions, and paid Cloud plans from $29 a month keep bots working with the laptop closed.
What Hermes Agent still does better
- Writes its own skills and improves with use.
- Lives in your messaging apps and runs on a $5 VPS.
- An official hosted option, Hermes Cloud, billed per day to Nous Portal credits.
Other Hermes Agent alternatives
MausBot is the open-source option. The other agents in this category, each with its own comparison page:
- Bops by Orgo (Organic Intelligence, Inc.): Bops is a macOS app from Nick Vasilescu, co-founder of Orgo, the cloud-computer company.
- Grok Bot by xAI: Grok Bot has been in beta since August 11, 2026.
- Meta Muse by Meta: Muse launched on September 8, 2026 from Meta Superintelligence Labs.
- OpenAI dots by OpenAI: Dots launched at DevDay on September 29, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I run Hermes inside MausBot?
- Yes. MausBot spawns hermes acp with the provider you configured in ~/.hermes/config.yaml, and the bot gets MausBot's chat, rooms, routines, connected apps and phone companions. When Hermes asks before a command, the request appears as a MausBot approval card.
- Does MausBot gate every Hermes command?
- No. MausBot shows Hermes's own permission requests as cards; if Hermes is set not to ask, its shell runs without a card. Keep Hermes's approval mode on.
- Is there a Hermes Agent desktop app?
- Yes, Hermes Desktop, in public preview since June 2, 2026 for macOS, Windows and Linux. MausBot is a different kind of app: a team of bots, of which a Hermes bot can be one.
- Which is safer?
- Both have real controls. Hermes has approval modes and pairing codes but also a --yolo flag and a 2026 CVE list; MausBot's approval cards and loopback-only harness are the default for Claude, Codex and Grok bots; a Hermes bot keeps Hermes's own mode.