# Open-source Hermes alternatives, and who each one fits

> Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and it is the Hermes alternative built for a whole team. Hermes, OpenClaw, and OpenHands are strong open-source agents too, and each one fits a different job. The comparison sets out where each one stops.

URL: https://hermesalternative.com/hermes-alternatives

## The open-source options side by side

Four open-source agents, one of them built for a whole company.

| | Kortix (recommended) | Hermes | OpenClaw | OpenHands |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Open source. Read it, fork it, audit it. | Yes, with your own model. | Yes, on your hardware. | Yes, any LLM. |
| Designed for | Teams and companies. | One person. | One person; share one install. | An engineering team. |
| Main job | Agents across a company. | A personal assistant that learns. | An assistant in your chat apps. | Coding agents and automations. |
| Where the config lives | A git repo you own. | The machine you run it on. | Your hardware, one Gateway. | Your own machine or server. |
| Team governance | Roles, groups, and an audit trail. | Single operator. | Personal, or one shared install. | Code-focused team workflows. |
| Isolation per task | One isolated sandbox per session. | Docker, SSH, or Modal backend. | Sandboxing is opt-in. | Docker per conversation, opt-in. |
| Where it runs | Kortix Cloud, your VPC, or on-prem. | A $5 VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless. | Your own computer or a server. | Local, remote, or cloud. |
| Model choice | Any model provider with your own keys. | Any model, one command to switch. | Hosted or local providers. | Bring your own LLM. |

Rival facts come from each project's own repository, checked October 2026; Kortix facts come from the Kortix docs and the Kortix repository.

## A repo you own, self-hosted in one command

`terminal`

```sh
curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash
kortix self-host start
```

Source: https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna (README.md)

Self-host is one Docker Compose stack on your own box, and the repo holds every agent, connector, and trigger.

## What a Hermes alternative has to do

Hermes is Nous Research's personal agent: a self-improving agent that grows with you, runs on a cheap VPS or a GPU cluster, and talks to you from Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, or a terminal. [Hermes on GitHub](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent) documents it as an agent for one person.

The questions change the moment a team shares an agent. Who may run which tool? Which model is allowed? What did the agent do last Tuesday, and who approved it? A personal agent leaves those to you. A company platform answers them in the product, with roles, scoped tools, and an audit trail. That difference is what this list draws.

## Kortix: the option a whole company owns

Kortix is built for exactly that job: the alternative to reach for when more than one person steers the agent. Every agent, skill, memory file, and connector lives in a git repo the company owns, and every session runs on its own isolated cloud computer and branch.

[Kortix on GitHub](https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna) is open source: read it, fork it, audit it. Self-host it for free, or run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. A team gets multi-tenant projects, per-resource permissions for people and agents, one isolated sandbox per session, and an audit trail. Bring any model provider with your own keys.

A team or company that wants the open-source AI Operating System it can own, govern, and keep should start here.

## Hermes: the personal agent that grows with you

Hermes is built by Nous Research as a self-improving agent with a learning loop: it creates skills from experience, keeps agent-curated memory, searches its own past sessions, and reaches you across Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and the CLI. It runs on a $5 VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure, and you switch models with one command.

Hermes fits one person who wants a private, always-on agent on their own machine.

## OpenClaw: the assistant on your own computer

OpenClaw is an open-source AI assistant that runs on your own computer and meets you in the channels you already use. [OpenClaw on GitHub](https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw) describes one Gateway that runs it as a personal assistant on a laptop or as a shared team deployment, where configuration is the only difference. State, memory, and credentials live on your hardware, and tools run on the host unless you configure sandboxing. There is no paid tier or hosted service.

OpenClaw fits one person who wants their assistant on their own hardware, with the option to share one install.

## OpenHands: the workbench for coding agents

OpenHands is a self-hosted workspace for coding agents. [OpenHands on GitHub](https://github.com/OpenHands/OpenHands) runs OpenHands, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Pi, OpenCode, or any ACP-compatible agent across local, remote, and cloud backends, brings its own model, and can automate work with Slack, GitHub, and Linear.

OpenHands fits an engineering team that mainly wants coding agents, not a company-wide platform for every job.

## When a hosted tool is the right call

Not every team wants to run the stack. Manus is a hosted product: a general-purpose agent with a web app, mobile and desktop apps, a team plan, SSO, and an API, and no self-host. It fits a person or team that wants a managed agent and does not need to own the code or the data path. That is the trade this list keeps returning to: convenience for control.

## How to choose

If one person will steer the agent, Hermes or OpenClaw is a good fit. If an engineering team wants coding agents, OpenHands is built for that. If a whole company needs to own and govern its agents across many people, Kortix is the open-source platform built for it.

## Choosing a Hermes alternative

The questions a team asks while it weighs the options.

### Is Kortix open source?

Yes. Kortix is open source: read it, fork it, and audit it. The whole platform runs from one git repo you own.

### Which of these can a team share?

Kortix is multi-tenant, built for teams and companies. Hermes and OpenClaw are built for one operator. OpenHands runs coding agents for an engineering team.

### Do I have to self-host?

No. Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network; self-host is free.

### Can I bring the models we already pay for?

Yes. Any model provider with your own keys, or the ChatGPT plan you already pay for.

### Is there a hosted version of these agents?

Manus is a hosted, closed product with a team plan, SSO, and an API. The four options in the comparison are open source and self-hostable.

## Own your agents, your models, and your data.

Kortix is the open-source option built for a whole team.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Kortix on GitHub](https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna)

Open source · Any model, your keys · Self-host, VPC, or on-prem