Hermes Agent Surpasses OpenClaw in AI Agent Usage
Nous Research’s Hermes Agent has become the most-used open-source AI agent on OpenRouter, surpassing OpenClaw in daily token usage. As of May 10, 2026, Hermes Agent processed 224 billion daily tokens, while OpenClaw handled 186 billion.
The milestone marks a rapid rise for Hermes Agent, which Nous Research released on February 25, 2026. Earlier this month, the framework briefly reached 271 billion daily tokens before stabilizing at current levels.
The growing adoption reflects increasing developer demand for AI agents that support persistent learning and long-term task optimization. In addition, Hermes gained momentum through rapid updates and strong community engagement across open-source ecosystems.
OpenClaw Faces Security and Platform Challenges
OpenClaw’s decline followed several major disruptions throughout early 2026. In February, creator Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI, while the project transitioned toward a foundation-led structure.
At the same time, multiple security vulnerabilities weakened developer confidence in the platform. Researchers identified several critical flaws, including command injection vulnerabilities, remote code execution exploits, and privilege escalation bugs with severe risk ratings.
Furthermore, cybersecurity firms reported malware campaigns targeting OpenClaw users through malicious skills distributed on ClawHub. These attacks deployed infostealer malware and exposed broader concerns around the AI agent ecosystem security.
OpenClaw also lost momentum after Anthropic disabled subscription OAuth token access for Claude integrations in April. Consequently, many users lost low-cost access to Claude models, causing usage levels to decline sharply.
Persistent Learning Drives Hermes Adoption
Hermes Agent differentiates itself through a self-improving learning architecture. Instead of resetting context between sessions, the framework extracts reusable skills from completed tasks and automatically applies them to similar workflows later.
The system also performs periodic self-evaluation to retain and refine operational knowledge across sessions. Moreover, Hermes supports multiple AI providers, including OpenRouter, OpenAI, and compatible third-party endpoints.
Nous Research maintained an aggressive development cycle, reaching version 0.8.0 by early April with more than 1,000 merged pull requests. As a result, the framework attracted strong developer adoption and growing support across open-source AI communities.
Although Hermes now leads the rankings, the platform still faces future challenges around scaling, ecosystem governance, and cybersecurity resilience as adoption continues expanding.
