Both are free, open-source assistants you run yourself and talk to from your chat apps. OpenClaw puts the assistant on your phone and laptop with its own apps. Hermes writes its own skills and answers email. Here is the rest, from each project's own docs.
OpenClaw and Hermes Agent do the same basic job. You install one on a computer you control, give it a model, and message it from WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord or Slack. It remembers you, runs tools and keeps working while you are away. Both are MIT-licensed and cost nothing; you pay only for the model and the machine.
Both reach more than twenty chat apps, iMessage and Teams included, so the list of apps rarely decides it. The difference is what each project built around the chat. OpenClaw, from the OpenClaw Foundation, built apps that put the assistant on your devices. Hermes, from Nous Research, built an agent that writes its own skills and gets better at your tasks over time.
OpenClaw and Hermes side by side
| OpenClaw | Hermes Agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | OpenClaw Foundation, a 501(c)(3) | Nous Research |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Install | One script on macOS, Linux or Windows | One script on Linux, macOS or Windows |
| First chat | About 5 minutes, per its docs | Under 5 minutes, per its docs |
| Chat apps | 20+, including iMessage, Teams and Signal | 20+, including iMessage (through BlueBubbles) and Teams |
| Reads a mailbox through its IMAP plugin; does not send | Receives and replies in-thread over IMAP and SMTP | |
| Learning | Memory, skills from ClawHub | Writes and improves its own skills from experience |
| Apps | macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, Linux | Terminal UI and a desktop app |
| Where tools run | On the host, unless you set up a sandbox | Local, Docker, SSH, Modal, Daytona or Vercel Sandbox |
When OpenClaw is the better pick
Pick OpenClaw if you want the assistant on your devices, not only in a chat. It ships apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux that join the gateway as nodes. Through them it can use voice, a camera or the screen of the machine in front of you.
It suits people who want one assistant everywhere and are happy to shape it with skills other people wrote. The trade is care. Its docs say tools run on the host for the main session unless you set up a sandbox. Read its security guide before you connect anyone else.
When Hermes is the better pick
Pick Hermes if you want the assistant to get better at your work without you writing skills. After a hard task it writes a skill for next time and refines it as it uses it. It also searches its own past conversations, which helps when you ask about something from last month.
Hermes is also the one to choose if email matters. Its email gateway receives a message and sends the reply in the same thread, from the agent's own address. OpenClaw's IMAP plugin starts a session for each new email but, in its own words, does not send email.
OpenClaw comes to your devices. Hermes learns your work.
Moving from OpenClaw to Hermes
You do not have to start over if you change your mind. Hermes has an importer for OpenClaw. On a fresh install, hermes setup notices a ~/.openclaw folder and offers to bring it across. It copies your SOUL.md persona, memories, skills, command allowlist and messaging settings, and your API keys too if you ask.
hermes plugins install agent-importers
hermes import-agent openclaw --dry-run
hermes import-agent openclawRunning either one all day
Both need a computer that stays on. A laptop sleeps, and the assistant goes quiet with it. The usual answers are a small server you look after or a host that runs it for you.
Faivelo runs both, on a box of their own for $9 a month, each with its own email address. Hermes comes with WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord and Slack already linked, and its email gateway set up. OpenClaw answers your email from its own address, and you link its chat apps from its page. Either way you bring your own model key and pay the provider directly.
Try the one you picked, always on
Set up Hermes or OpenClaw on its own box with its own email address. No server to keep alive, month to month.