goose vs hermes-agent
hermes-agent is much bigger: 255.4k stars against 55.5k. Over the days we have tracked them goose moved +7.7% and hermes-agent +16.6%, so hermes-agent is growing faster right now.
hermes-agent leads on context depth and noise control. goose does not take any axis by a clear margin.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
A native, local-first agent with desktop app, CLI, and an extensible plugin ecosystem (Model Context Protocol) plus broad provider support.
- Stars
- 55.5k
- Tracked growth
- +7.7%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 30m ago
- Language
- Rust
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Your API key for cloud models; can use local models.
A self-hostable personal agent with a built-in closed learning loop that creates, persists, and self-improves skills from its own experience.
- Stars
- 255.4k
- Tracked growth
- +16.6%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 13m ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- MIT
- Cost to run
- Your API key or Nous Portal subscription
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | goose | hermes-agent |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Diff/File only | ●●●●● Related files |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● None mentioned | ●●●●● Approval & allowlist |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Extensions & distro | ●●●●● Skills & config |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hostable | ●●●●● Self-hostable |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● BYO key & local | ●●●●● Bring-your-own-key |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● One-command install | ●●●●● One-command install |
Which one to pick
Pick goose if…
Privacy-first — run a native desktop/CLI agent locally while still using your preferred cloud or local models and many extensions.
Pick hermes-agent if…
Continual learning — pick Hermes when you want a self-hosted, continuously learning personal assistant that builds and improves skills across sessions and integrates with messaging platforms.
- Context depth: Related files (3/5 against 1/5)
- Noise control: Approval & allowlist (3/5 against 1/5)
What people want from each one
aaif-goose/goose
Hacker News: Goose: An open-source, extensible AI agent that goes beyond code suggestions drew 249 points and 68 comments.
NousResearch/hermes-agent
Hacker News: Nous Research edits GitHub issue to remove plagiarism claims about Hermes Agent drew 8 points and 1 comments.
Questions people ask
Is goose better than hermes-agent?
hermes-agent leads on context depth and noise control. goose does not take any axis by a clear margin. goose is worth picking when privacy-first — run a native desktop/CLI agent locally while still using your preferred cloud or local models and many extensions.
Which of goose and hermes-agent keeps my code private?
goose: Self-hostable (4/5). hermes-agent: Self-hostable (4/5).
What does each one cost to run?
goose: Your API key for cloud models; can use local models.. hermes-agent: Your API key or Nous Portal subscription.
Full profiles: aaif-goose/goose and NousResearch/hermes-agent. Everything else in Personal assistants.