Published: 2026-07-02

OpenClaw vs Hermes Agent (2026): Which AI Agent Should You Run?

Chapters / key moments (click to jump — plays here on the page)

Tech With Tim deploys both OpenClaw and Hermes Agent on real VPS instances and runs identical jobs through each so you can see how they actually differ. The verdict: Hermes wins as a single-user daily driver — its "curator" writes and refines skills automatically and its memory is faster and deeper — while OpenClaw's edge is its 5,400-skill catalog and easier multi-gateway routing for customer-facing, multi-channel deployments. For a structured side-by-side, see our compare hub.

Source video

"OpenClaw vs Hermes Agent: Which One Is Actually Better in 2026?" by Tech With Tim — Watch on YouTube →

Key Takeaways

Hermes recently passed OpenClaw in daily token volume (~224B vs ~186B tokens/day). OpenClaw is the more mature project (released Nov 2025, 137+ releases, ~5,400 skills); Hermes is newer (Feb 2026, ~11 releases) but growing fast.
Both are the same shape: an LLM wrapped with tools (MCP servers), skills (markdown workflow files), memory, and a gateway (Telegram, Discord, email). What differs is how well each part works, not what they can theoretically do.
OpenClaw is skill-catalog-driven: browse Claw Hub (5,400+ skills), click install. Custom skills exist but you must ask the model to build each one manually.
Hermes is a self-learning loop: its "curator" watches your sessions, auto-detects a workflow you've repeated several times, and writes a skill for it in the background — then moves skills through active → stale → archived states so they don't pile up as context bloat.
Memory: Hermes writes to memory more intelligently and recalls across more of it; OpenClaw's memory works but is less efficient and less automatic. This is why Hermes gets cheaper to run over time — it reuses saved skills instead of re-discovering the same workflow.
OpenClaw's remaining edge is the gateway layer: it's easier to wire up multiple gateways (Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, Line, web widget) routed into shared-memory agents — better for customer-facing or multi-user setups. Its control board is more configurable but more complex; Hermes' UI is more bare-bones but works out of the box.
Security: OpenClaw's larger skill ecosystem is a bigger attack surface (the Feb 2026 incident exposed 40,000+ instances). Hermes pulls in less external code, so its surface is smaller. Both are best run on a disposable VPS you can nuke — not your own machine.
Verdict: pick Hermes for a personal daily driver you chat with a lot and want to improve over time; pick OpenClaw for advanced, multi-channel, customer-facing deployments where you want maximum control.

What you can actually set up from this

Extracted from the video's own transcript — the specifics the original summary left out.

Reproducible steps

Deploy both agents on a VPS, not your own machine
The speaker's setup: Hostinger one-click deploys for OpenClaw and for Hermes Agent, both on the KVM 2 plan, roughly $5 to $15 a month for a VPS in general. Untick "ready to use AI" when deploying so you can enter your own API keys. The reason given for a VPS: an autonomous agent on your own computer can reach your files and network, whereas a disposable server can be deleted with one click.
Skills in OpenClaw
Skills tab, then ClawHub (set up automatically), search (e.g. GitHub), read the skill, install. Making a custom skill means asking the model to write one; it is not created automatically.
Skills in Hermes Agent
A "curator" runs in the background over memory and session logs and can create a skill when it sees you repeat a task. It also moves agent-created skills through active, stale and archived states so they do not pile up and bloat context. The agent can create, update and delete its own skills through a Skill Manager tool. There is no marketplace by default; you can add a skill by hand with a name, category and description.
The side-by-side test
A seven-step research-brief workflow was pasted into both. In a new session Hermes loaded a skill it had created itself (named Source Driven Briefs) and reran the brief. OpenClaw searched memory, found the answer, but used no skill and was slower.
UI differences out of the box
OpenClaw's control board exposes many settings (agents, nodes, gateways, channels, automation, infrastructure). Hermes shows tasks, scheduled jobs, a Kanban board, built-in skills you can toggle, memory and logs. Hermes does not ship with a web UI by default; the Hostinger deploy installed it.

Gotchas

Sponsored: the speaker says they have a long-term partnership with Hostinger and gave a discount code, so the hosting advice is not neutral.
Figures quoted (as of the recording, mid-2026): Hermes about 224 billion tokens a day vs OpenClaw about 186 billion; OpenClaw released November 2025 with 137+ releases; ClawHub fell from about 13,000 skills to 3,300 after a security purge and was back to about 5,400; Hermes released February 2026 with 11 releases; a February 2026 incident exposed 40,000+ OpenClaw instances to the internet. Not verified here.
The speaker's conclusion is Hermes for a single-user daily driver and OpenClaw for customer-facing or multi-channel setups, where he finds routing several gateways into different agents with shared memory easier.
He says the differences are much larger over long use and are hard to show in a 3 to 4 minute demo; this is a fresh-instance comparison with one task.