Open-source self-improving AI agent
exployt vs Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent is Nous Research's free, MIT-licensed, self-improving AI agent. It runs on your machine, a server or Nous's cloud, reaches you on 20+ messaging platforms and coordinates helpers through subagents, Bot Mode and a Kanban board. Of all the tools compared here, it is the closest to exployt's idea of agents that keep working on their own.
Different goals
Make one person as powerful as a whole software company: a managed team of AI agents that plans, builds, tests and debugs production-grade software on their own machine.
Be one personal agent that lives everywhere, remembers what it learns and keeps getting more capable — a general assistant first, with coding as one of many jobs.
What you can expect with exployt
- Get a software team, not just an assistant: AI managers (CTO, CPO, PM) plan the work, hand it to specialised agents and review the results.
- Work with engineering tools built into the orchestrator: a debugger with breakpoints for .NET, browser debugging, Roslyn diagnostics, profiling, a test runner and UI automation of the app you build.
- Put the subscriptions you already pay for to work: exployt drives Claude Code and Codex and runs ~200 AI model & tool providers side by side — cloud APIs, hundreds of models via OpenRouter, image & video, and free local Ollama models.
- Trace every change to the agent and task that made it, in a local project database with semantic search.
exployt vs Hermes Agent — side by side
| What matters | exployt | Hermes Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | One person shipping serious software | Always-on personal and team automation |
| Primary focus | Building and maintaining software with a team of agents | General-purpose agent; coding is one use case |
| Team structure | AI managers (CTO/CPO/PM) with role rules, spawn rights and approval tiers | Orchestrator role and Kanban profiles; flat nesting by default |
| Parallel agents | Many in parallel — no app cap, architected for 100+ | 10 concurrent subagents by default; Kanban dispatches more profiles |
| Agent-to-agent communication | AI2AI messaging with per-role rules and round caps | Bot Mode group chats and peer messaging |
| Real debugging | Debugger with breakpoints (.NET), browser debugging, Roslyn diagnostics, profiling | No debugger integration; checkpoints and rollback |
| AI providers | ~200 AI model & tool providers, 1,500+ models: subscriptions, cloud APIs, local models, image & video | 100+ providers, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, local models |
| Memory and learning | Local project database: learnings, decisions, error database, skills, wiki + semantic search | Self-written skills, curated memory files, session search |
| Planning and oversight | Workstreams, features, tasks, Kanban, plan approval modes | Kanban with dependencies, review gates and human blocks |
| AI cost | Up to 70% lower AI costs; bring your own keys or run free local models | Token and cost analytics; you pay each provider directly |
| Where it runs | Windows desktop app (macOS in progress); no server mode | Windows, macOS, Linux, Docker, VPS, serverless or hosted cloud |
| Messaging channels | Desktop app; no chat-app gateway | 20+ platforms incl. Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal |
| License | Proprietary | Open source (MIT) |
| Pricing | Free for private use; paid plans for commercial use | Free; you pay your model provider (optional Nous Portal plans) |
| Maturity | Early Access | Large open-source community, releases every few days |
Why exployt wins
- A real software team: AI managers plan, delegate and review, with role rules, approval tiers and every change traced per agent and task.
- Engineering depth inside the orchestrator — debugger, Roslyn diagnostics, profiling, tests and UI automation — instead of a general-purpose agent loop.
- Uses the Claude Code and Codex subscriptions you already have, next to direct APIs and free local models.
Where Hermes Agent is strong
- Free and MIT-licensed, with a very large open-source community and frequent releases.
- Runs almost anywhere — Windows, macOS, Linux, Docker, servers or Nous's hosted cloud — and reaches you on 20+ messaging platforms.
- A strong learning loop: it writes and improves its own skills and keeps memory across sessions.
The verdict
Pick Hermes Agent for a free, open-source personal agent that is always on, reachable from your chat apps and good at many kinds of tasks. Pick exployt when your goal is software: a managed team of AI agents with engineering tools built in — debugger, diagnostics, profiling, tests — that turns your existing subscriptions and models into a development team on your own machine.
Frequently asked questions
Is exployt a good Hermes Agent alternative?
For building software, yes. Hermes Agent is a general-purpose, self-improving agent that also writes code. exployt is built specifically for software teams of AI agents: AI managers plan and review the work, and a debugger, diagnostics, profiling and tests are part of the platform.
Is Hermes Agent free?
Yes. Hermes Agent is MIT-licensed; you pay only for the models you use or an optional Nous Portal plan, and the hosted Hermes Cloud is billed per day. exployt is free for private use, with paid plans for commercial use.
Can Hermes Agent run several agents in parallel?
Yes. It runs up to 10 concurrent subagents by default and can dispatch separate profiles from a shared Kanban board. exployt organises its agents under AI managers with role rules and approval tiers, focused on software projects.
Ready to lead your AI army?
exployt exists to make one person as powerful as a whole company: run many well-organized AI agents in parallel to build, test and debug production-grade software — all on your own machine, with your choice of AI models.