claude-code-routervsHermes Agent
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
claude-code-router
musistudio · Agent harness
OSSMCP
Panel
7.01 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.3
- Usefulness
- 7.7
- Cost
- 8.3
- Longevity
- 5.8
“Its main job is pointing Claude Code at a model that is not Claude, and it is named after both of them.”
Hermes Agent
Nous Research · Agent harness
OSSMCP
Panel
6.86 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.2
- Usefulness
- 6.5
- Cost
- 7.2
- Longevity
- 7.2
“Reachable on Signal and by email, so you can now be left on read by an agent on six platforms.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | claude-code-router | Hermes Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Runs | local | local, cloud, sandbox |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows, web | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | NoCCR is a routing proxy; the agent CLI behind it does the executing. | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | No | Yes |
| Git operations | No | No |
| Browser control | No | Yes |
| Sandboxed execution | YesA documented docker compose deployment runs the router itself in a container; it does not sandbox the agents that call it. | Yes |
| Multi-agent orchestration | YesCCR fronts many agent CLIs at once (Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI, Kimi CLI, Kilo Code, OpenCode, ZCode) but does not itself orchestrate agents against a task. | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, SiliconFlow, Moonshot Kimi, Mistral, Z.AI, Bailian | Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | YesAny OpenAI-compatible endpoint can be added as a custom provider with its own base URL, which covers a locally hosted server; no named Ollama or LM Studio preset is documented. | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $20/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 37,511 | 250,643 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | claude-code-router | Hermes Agent | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.3 | 7.0 | claude-code-router — Pick it if you like your agent and dislike its bill; pick OpenCode if you would rather run an agent that talks to many providers without a proxy in between. |
| El Crítico | 6.3 | 6.3 | no preference |
| El Profesor | 7.0 | 6.8 | claude-code-router — The local console logs the resolved route, latency, token counts and a cost estimate per request, which turns routing from an assumption into a measurement. |
| La Inversora | 6.5 | 6.8 | Hermes Agent — Nous Research gives the agent away and sells the Portal: 300-plus models, search, images and a cloud browser under one subscription from $20 a month, with a free tier as the funnel. |
| La Jefa | 6.5 | 5.3 | claude-code-router — Free for sixty, and the credential pool with key rotation is the first thing on this board that looks like something a platform team would actually want. |
| El Hacker | 8.8 | 8.5 | claude-code-router — MIT, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint becomes a provider by writing its base URL into the config, which includes the server on my own machine. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.