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SOAT vs Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent is an agent framework (MIT, self-hosted). SOAT is agent infrastructure (Apache-2.0, self-hosted). Of the 15 capabilities the benchmark tracks, Hermes Agent covers 7 natively and SOAT 12.

At a glance​

Hermes AgentSOAT
Typean agent frameworkagent infrastructure
LicenseMITApache-2.0
Deploymentself-hostedself-hosted
Native capabilities7 of 1512 of 15
Last verified2026-08-142026-08-14

Where each one leads​

  • Hermes Agent is native where SOAT is not: channels, code execution, skill learning.
  • SOAT is native where Hermes Agent is not: orchestration, identity & governance, observability, data & secrets, evaluation, multi-tenancy, declarative deployment, versioning & rollout.

What Hermes Agent is​

Open-source agent runtime from Nous Research with a built-in learning loop (skills from experience), agent-curated memory, 40+ tools plus MCP, and a multi-platform gateway (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, CLI). Hermes Agent documentation.

Capability by capability​

Agent runtime​

Agent loop, sessions, and generation lifecycle.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. Agent loop with subagent spawning, skill learning, and 300+ LLMs via multiple providers. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. Agents, sessions, chats, and generations with full lifecycle tracking. (source)

Orchestration​

Multi-step pipelines, workflows, and triggers.

  • Hermes Agent: Partial. Cron scheduler for unattended automations and parallel subagents; no declarative DAG/workflow engine. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. DAG orchestrations, workflow state machines, durable tasks, and triggers (manual, webhook, schedule). (source)

Knowledge & memory​

Documents, embeddings, semantic search, and recall.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. Agent-curated memory, persistent user profiles, cross-session recall, and full-text search over past conversations. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. Documents with per-chunk embeddings, named memories, unified semantic search, and ingestion rules for PDFs, images, and audio. (source)

Tools & integration​

Tool calling, MCP, providers, and webhooks.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. 40+ built-in tools, MCP server support, and seven terminal/sandbox backends. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. HTTP, MCP, client, and agent-to-agent tools; model routes with failover; webhooks; any LLM provider. (source)

Identity & governance​

IAM, guardrails, approvals, quotas, and audit.

  • Hermes Agent: Absent. Single-operator model; no multi-tenant IAM, policies, quotas, approvals, or audit log.
  • SOAT: Native. AWS-inspired IAM, actors, scoped API keys, guardrails, human approvals, quotas, and an append-only audit log. (source)

Observability​

Traces, activity, usage, and failure queues.

  • Hermes Agent: Partial. Batch trajectory generation and research-focused evaluation tooling; no structured trace/usage/audit model. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. Traces of every tool call and model response, activity feed, usage/cost tracking, and an exceptions queue. (source)

Data & secrets​

File storage and encrypted secrets.

  • Hermes Agent: Absent. No managed file storage or encrypted secrets store.
  • SOAT: Native. File storage over local/S3/GCS backends and encrypted secrets storage. (source)

Evaluation​

Datasets, scorers, and eval-gated improvement.

  • Hermes Agent: Partial. Batch trajectory generation for model training and research eval tools; not a dataset/scorer eval product. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. Datasets, scorers, and scored runs; eval-gated promotion of agent versions. (source)

Channels​

Built-in gateways to messaging platforms and UIs.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. Single gateway to Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and CLI with cross-platform conversation continuity. (source)
  • SOAT: Absent. Surfaces are REST, MCP, CLI, and SDK — no built-in gateways to messaging platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, or Telegram.

Code execution​

Sandboxed code or terminal runtimes for agents.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. Seven terminal backends: local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal, Daytona, and Vercel Sandbox. (source)
  • SOAT: Absent. Tool types are HTTP, MCP, client, and agent-to-agent — no built-in sandboxed code or terminal runtime.

Human-in-the-loop​

Pausing a run for human approval, then resuming it.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. Commands matching a dangerous-pattern list pause for explicit operator approval with once, session, always, and deny responses, plus code-based pairing approval. (source)
  • SOAT: Native. Approvals are a first-class human-decision queue with frozen evidence, and guardrails classify each tool call so risky actions pause for a decision. (source)

Multi-tenancy​

Projects or workspaces scoping resources and permissions.

  • Hermes Agent: Absent. Single-operator design scoped to a working directory, with no projects, workspaces, or org-level scoping of resources and permissions.
  • SOAT: Native. Projects are multi-tenant namespaces scoping every resource, with IAM policies and quotas enforced per project. (source)

Declarative deployment​

Templates that provision agent resources as one stack.

  • Hermes Agent: Absent. Ships Docker and Nix files for installing the runtime, but no declarative provisioning of agent resources with a dependency graph or plan/apply.
  • SOAT: Native. Formations provision providers, memories, tools, agents, orchestrations, and webhooks from one template, resolving refs into a dependency graph with tracked operations. (source)

Versioning & rollout​

Agent versions, canary rollout, gated promotion.

  • Hermes Agent: Absent. Only a binary update command; no immutable agent definition versions, aliases, staged rollout, or rollback.
  • SOAT: Native. Every config change is archived as an append-only agent version, with canary rollout to a slice of traffic and eval-gated promotion. (source)

Skill learning​

Agents authoring reusable skills from their own experience.

  • Hermes Agent: Native. A skill management tool creates and patches skill files after complex tasks or error recovery, and a background review stages further skill changes after a session. (source)
  • SOAT: Absent. Memories and knowledge store retrievable context, but agents do not author or refine reusable skills from their own experience.

How this is rated​

Each rating comes from the public documentation linked beside it: Native is built in, Via plugin needs an add-on, Partial covers part of the capability, Absent is not offered. Every solution side by side is on the benchmark. A rating that is out of date is a bug: open an issue.