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The Best UI For Hermes Agent, Ranked: My Agent OS First, Then Six More
The best UI for Hermes Agent, in my own daily work, is my Agent OS, which is the one dashboard where Hermes, Claude and my other agents share a single memory.
It is my own product, so weigh that when you read the ranking.
Hermes Desktop is my second pick and the best free one, and Herald OS is third because it is the best-looking Hermes front-end I have used.
Here is the ranked list first, then the quick-start for each interface and how Hermes fits into an Agent OS workflow.
The best UI for Hermes Agent options, ranked
Here is the full ranking, with what each one is, what it costs and who it suits.
| Rank | UI for Hermes Agent | What it is | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agent OS | It is my own multi-agent dashboard, with Hermes, Claude Code and my other agents under one shared memory. | Included with AI Profit Boardroom membership | It is best for running Hermes next to other agents. |
| 2 | Hermes Desktop | It is the official native app from Nous Research for macOS, Windows and Linux. | Free | It is best for most people starting free. |
| 3 | Herald OS | It is an independent, full-screen agent OS with Hermes as the interface. | Free (alpha) | It is best for the nicest look. |
| 4 | Hermes WebUI | It is a lightweight community browser app with close to command-line parity. | Free | It is best for a browser or a phone. |
| 5 | Hermes Workspace | It is a community command centre with chat, memory, skills, files, a terminal and a kanban board. | Free | It is best for a free task board. |
| 6 | Terminal and TUI | It is the original command line, plus the modern hermes --tui. | Free | It is best for developers and servers. |
| 7 | Hermes3D | It is an unofficial 3D office for agents, which I have not tested. | Free | It is best treated as an experiment for now. |
This order is my own first-person pick from what I use, and it is not a measured benchmark.
I put my Agent OS first because it is honestly the screen I open every morning, and I have told you it is mine.
I put Hermes Desktop second because it is the best free interface, and it is official and stable.
I put Herald OS third because I think it looks nicer than Hermes Desktop, but it is still an alpha.
I put Hermes3D last because I have not tested it, so everything I say about it comes from its README.
What a UI for Hermes Agent is
Hermes Agent is the free, open-source AI agent from Nous Research, and it began as a terminal tool.
A UI for Hermes Agent is a front-end that sits on top of that agent, so you can chat and manage it with clicks.
The official docs say the front-ends all talk to the same agent and share state.
That means a session you start in one interface can be resumed in another.
In Agent OS terms, the UI is the cockpit, and the agent, its memory and its skills are the machine underneath.
So you can change cockpits whenever you like without rebuilding anything.
Why this ranking differs from my earlier one
I already published my earlier ranking of the free Hermes UIs, and Hermes Desktop won it.
In that list I kept my Agent OS out of the ranking, because the list covered free downloads and the Agent OS is mine.
This page answers a different question, which is what I actually use every day.
The honest answer is my Agent OS, so it is first here with a clear disclosure.
Hermes Desktop is still the best free pick, and Herald OS is still the best-looking one.
If you only want free tools, read from number two down and you lose nothing.
Quick-start for every UI for Hermes Agent
These are the shortest real routes I know, taken from each project's own instructions and my own installs.
| UI for Hermes Agent | Quick-start | Where it opens |
|---|---|---|
| Agent OS | Join the AI Profit Boardroom, download the zip and follow the install video, with Hermes already installed. | It opens in your browser on your own machine. |
| Hermes Desktop | Run hermes desktop, or download the installer from the Hermes Desktop page. | It opens as a native app. |
| Herald OS | Install Hermes, download the Mac build from the GitHub releases page, then run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Herald OS.app" once. | It opens full screen. |
| Hermes WebUI | Run git clone https://github.com/nesquena/hermes-webui.git hermes-webui, then cd hermes-webui, then python3 bootstrap.py. | It opens in your browser. |
| Hermes Workspace | Run the project's one-line installer, then hermes gateway run in one terminal and pnpm dev in another. | It opens on localhost at port 3000. |
| Terminal and TUI | Run hermes --tui. | It opens in your terminal. |
| Hermes3D | The README says to clone the repo, run npm install, copy .env.example to .env and run npm run dev. | The README says it opens on localhost at port 3000. |
Every route assumes Hermes Agent itself is installed and has a model provider.
That provider can be a Nous Portal account or an API key for OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic or a local model.
The Hermes3D route is copied from its README, because I have not run it myself.
If you have not installed Hermes yet, my one-click Hermes guide gets you there first.
🔥 Want the exact Hermes Agent interfaces and the Agent OS setup I run inside my Agent OS?
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What my Agent OS actually is
My Agent OS is one local dashboard where all my AI agents live and share one memory.
The home page is Mission Control, and it shows the live status of every agent and what happened since I last looked.
Every agent is a page in the same app, and each one has a chat panel, a file workspace and a control room.
Mine has seven agents wired in, which are Claude Code, OpenClaw, Hermes, Antigravity, Codex, Gemini and Free Claude Code.
Underneath sits an Obsidian vault, which is a folder of plain text files that every agent reads before it works and writes to when it finishes.
A kanban board sits on top, so agents can pick up cards and move them to done.
The whole thing opens on my phone through Tailscale, which builds a private network between my own devices.
It is not on public GitHub, and members of the AI Profit Boardroom download it as an installable zip.
I explain that in my post about the Agent OS and GitHub.
How Hermes fits the three layers of an Agent OS
I think about any agent setup as three layers, and the UI is only one of them.
| Layer | The job | What I use for it |
|---|---|---|
| Brain | This is Hermes plus the models it thinks with. | I use Hermes Agent with a model picked in the model picker, and a local fallback. |
| Cockpit | This is the screen where every job has a button. | I use my Agent OS, and Hermes Desktop is the free cockpit I'd start with. |
| Memory | This is the notes folder your agents read before work and write to after. | I use an Obsidian vault of plain text files. |
Most people install Hermes and stop at the brain.
That is why their agent feels like a smart chat window and gets abandoned after a weekend.
The cockpit gives the agent somewhere to live, and the memory means it never starts cold.
The full blueprint is in my 3-layer Hermes OS guide.
The Hermes desk inside my Agent OS
Hermes is not one chat tab in my Agent OS.
It is one agent behind thirteen doors, which are Chat, Apollo voice, Oracle, Astros, Studio, Sessions, Outreach, Mixture, Workspace, MCPs, Manage, Control Room and Goal Mode.
I live in two of them most days, which are chat and voice.
These are the doors I'd point a new operator at first.
| Door in the Hermes desk | What I use it for |
|---|---|
| Chat | It is the everyday line to Hermes, with a row of profile chips for different jobs. |
| Apollo voice | It listens for "hey Hermes" in the browser and answers out loud in about five seconds. |
| Workspace | It is where the things my agents build land, so I am not hunting through folders. |
| Goal Mode | It lets me give Hermes a big goal and walk away while it works. |
| Oracle | It is a named Hermes agent that checks competitors' sites and news each morning and writes a report into the vault. |
| Manage | It embeds the full Hermes dashboard, with every session, model, cron job and skill. |
| The board | It turns bigger jobs into tickets, and a dispatcher starts a Hermes worker for each one. |
Every exchange through any door saves itself into the vault, so nothing is explained twice.
When I recorded the guide, the Manage room showed 1,018 saved sessions.
The room-by-room tour is in the Hermes Command Desk guide.
Quick-start: Hermes inside an Agent OS in six steps
This is the order I'd follow, whether you use my pack or build your own.
- First, install Hermes Agent and pick a model, because the dashboard cannot find an agent that is not there.
- Second, open the Agent OS and check that your Hermes profiles appear as chips in the chat, because the OS reads your profiles folder on its own.
- Third, tap the ear icon once to arm the "hey Hermes" wake word, and grant the microphone when the browser asks.
- Fourth, run
hermes kanban boards create my-buildsso the ticket door lights up. - Fifth, connect the vault, so every agent reads your business context at the start of a session.
- Sixth, install Tailscale on your computer and your phone, and bookmark the private address.
On a Mac you also need to stop the machine sleeping when the display is off, because remote access fails without that one setting.
A good first test is to say "hey Hermes, what's on my board?" and listen for the answer.
🔥 Want the exact Hermes Agent interfaces and the Agent OS setup I run inside my Agent OS?
Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step video tutorials, four coaching calls a week and 3,400+ members building real automations.
You can build your own Agent OS for free
You do not have to join anything to get an Agent OS.
My Agent OS build guide gives you seven copy-paste prompts in the exact order I used.The first prompt asks Claude Code to create a local mission control dashboard with a section for each agent.
The second and third prompts build the Obsidian vault and plug it into the dashboard.
The fourth prompt is a pattern you reuse for every agent, and it simply asks for the same chat panel, workspace and control room with a new name.
The sixth prompt adds the kanban board.
The core build is about one afternoon, and it will not be perfect on the first pass, because mine wasn't either.
The pack inside the AI Profit Boardroom is the finished version of that build, so the trade is your afternoon against a membership.
The free interfaces in more detail
Hermes Desktop
Hermes Desktop uses the same agent core, config, keys, sessions, skills and memory as the command line.
It gives you streaming chat, a preview rail, a file browser, voice, cron, profiles, skills and settings.
It also has a plugin marketplace, where I found around 500 free community plugins with a one-click install.
It is the cockpit I'd give anyone who runs Hermes on its own.
Herald OS
Herald OS is made by an independent developer called Luke The Dev, and it is not affiliated with Nous Research.
Its dashboard greets you, shows today's schedule and offers a "Pick up where you left off" card.
Spaces split your work into Ideas, Work and Personal, and Missions, Memory, Files and Automations each get their own page.
My automations synced across Herald OS, Hermes Desktop and my Agent OS, because all three run the same Hermes.
The full tour is in my Herald OS guide.
Hermes WebUI and Hermes Workspace
Hermes WebUI is built by nesquena with Python and plain JavaScript, so there is no build step.
It has sessions on the left, chat in the middle and a workspace file browser on the right.
Hermes Workspace is the heavier browser option by outsourc-e, and version 2 added profiles, a kanban board, a live inspector and an editable memory browser.
I have used that kanban board as an AI to-do list.
The terminal and the TUI
The terminal is the baseline, and the docs call hermes --tui the recommended way to run Hermes interactively.
It is free and fast, and it suits developers and anyone on a remote server.
Hermes3D
Hermes3D is a 3D virtual office for AI agents by LukeTheDev, and I have not tested it.
Its README says it is an independent, community-driven front-end that is not affiliated with the teams behind the agent backends it connects to.
It describes a live 3D office where you watch agents work, run standups and review pull requests, with a 2D pixel office for low-power machines.
The README asks for Node.js 20 or later, and Hermes3D does not install Hermes for you.
My docs-based explainer is in the Hermes3D guide.
If you mostly want screens that show sessions, costs and tasks, read my Hermes Agent dashboards roundup too.
Honest limits of each UI for Hermes Agent
No interface here is perfect, so here is the one thing I'd warn you about for each.
| UI for Hermes Agent | The honest limit |
|---|---|
| Agent OS | It is my own product, it needs a membership, and it runs on your own machine, so your home internet and power decide remote access. |
| Hermes Desktop | It runs Hermes only, and voice permissions were hit and miss on my Mac in June. |
| Herald OS | It is an alpha, the Connections page did not sync for me, and the top of the UI was slightly cut off. |
| Hermes WebUI | You have to secure remote access yourself. |
| Hermes Workspace | It needs the gateway and the dashboard running behind it. |
| Terminal and TUI | It is the least friendly option for beginners. |
| Hermes3D | It is unofficial, I have not tested it, and its repo shows one release and no pushes since late August 2026. |
The Agent OS limit matters most to me, because I travel.
My home internet is the speed limit when I'm away, and a power cut at home means waiting until it is back.
Tips from running Hermes in an Agent OS every day
Pick one cockpit and stick with it for a week before you judge it.
Start with Hermes plus one other agent, and add the rest later.
Do a task by hand with the agent first, then save it as a workflow, and only then automate it.
Keep approval prompts on until you trust a new setup.
Check the Memory page before you share your screen, because I once spotted my Telegram details in mine.
Treat a new model as a candidate to test, because the system should stay the same when the model changes.
If you want the full stack around the interface, read the best Hermes Agent setup next.
Also On Our Network
FAQ
What is the best UI for Hermes Agent?
The UI I use every day is my own Agent OS, which runs Hermes next to Claude and my other agents under one shared memory. It is my own product and it is only available inside the AI Profit Boardroom. The best free UI for Hermes Agent is Hermes Desktop, the official app from Nous Research.
Is the Agent OS on GitHub?
No. My Agent OS is not on public GitHub. Members of the AI Profit Boardroom download it as an installable zip with an install video. My free guide at agentos.guide/ai-agent-os gives you the prompts to build your own version.
Why is the Agent OS first here but unranked in your other list?
My best Hermes Agent UI list ranks the free downloads, so I left my own product out of it. This list ranks what I actually use every day, so the Agent OS is first with a clear disclosure. Hermes Desktop is the top free pick in both.
Can I run Hermes Desktop and an Agent OS together?
Yes. The interfaces share one Hermes install, so my automations synced across Herald OS, Hermes Desktop and my Agent OS. You can chat in one and manage settings in another.
Have you tested Hermes3D?
No. I have not tested Hermes3D, so my notes come from its GitHub README. It is an unofficial community project by LukeTheDev with one release from August 2026, so check the repo for activity before you rely on it.
Final word on the best UI for Hermes Agent
Start with Hermes Desktop if you want a free cockpit today.
Move to an Agent OS when you add a second agent and want one memory across all of them, and you will have the best UI for Hermes Agent for your own workflow.
About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an AI entrepreneur, SEO expert and the founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
My YouTube channel has 400,000+ subscribers, and I run Goldie Agency, a seven-figure SEO agency.
Related guides on agentos.guide
→ How to Build Your Own AI Agent OS
→ Best Hermes Agent UI: The Free Front-Ends Ranked
→ Herald OS: The Free Hermes Agent OS
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