Azaris vs Hermes
This one has a twist: Hermes is the engine inside Azaris. The real comparison is who operates it: you, on a server you babysit, or us, hosted and hardened, so it's simply easier to set up.
Same engine, different job description
Hermes is Nous Research's open agent runtime, and in our view the best one you can run, which is exactly why it's what every Azaris agent runs on. Self-hosting Hermes gets you the same engine and makes you the ops team: you provision the box, store the keys, wire the channels, apply the updates, and back up its memory. Azaris is that engine with the ops removed: you sign up, connect your tools, and message it.
Why Hermes is worth building on
- Channel gateways built in. Telegram, Slack, Discord, and Buzz speak natively to the runtime.
- Skills as readable markdown. Capabilities you can open and understand, not plugins to compile.
- MCP support. The open protocol connecting it to a growing universe of tools.
- First-class memory. Pluggable backends, with memory kept as files you can read and edit.
- Native browser tooling and scheduled routines. Built into the runtime, not bolted on.
Side by side
| Capability | Hermes (self-hosted) | Azaris |
|---|---|---|
| The Hermes runtime itself | ||
| Setup and channel wiring done for you | ✕ | |
| Keys sealed in a vault, injected at start | DIY | |
| Isolated machine + persistent volume, managed | DIY | |
| Config updates that preserve your edits | DIY | |
| Drafts-by-default approval flow | DIY | |
| You patch it and keep it alive | ✕ | |
| Bring your own model key |
What self-hosting Hermes is great at
- Engineers who want the runtime under their fingers.
- Custom setups no hosted product would ship.
- Learning how an agent actually works, from the inside.
Where Azaris fills the gap
- The same runtime, working the day you sign up.
- Security handled as architecture: vault, isolation, audit trail.
- Your config edits survive our updates. The platform merges around what you wrote instead of overwriting it.
- When something breaks at 2am, it's our pager, not yours.
Already self-hosting Hermes?
A one-time import carries your install (memory, instructions, and config) onto your Azaris machine, so switching doesn't mean starting over.
The honest verdict
There's no "versus" on the engine. Hermes won that one inside our own stack. The choice is whether operating it should be your job. If ops is the fun part, self-host it. If the agent is the point, Azaris is Hermes with the setup and security already done. Coming from the other famous self-hosted agent instead? See Azaris vs OpenClaw.
Ready to put Azaris to work?Set up in an afternoon, or have us build the whole thing.Get your agentWant it built for you?