After Elon Musk posted on X that "Grok @Bot has a remote computer that keeps working even if you close your laptop or reboot your desktop," Nous Research fired back that its own Hermes Agent has the same capability.
In a reply, Nous Research said, "Hermes Agent has its own remote computer too, but it isn't tied to its use, and a few dollars is enough instead of $200 a month."
Nous Research answers Grok Bot's remote computer
Hermes Agent is an AI agent released under the MIT license, with its own learning loop that improves its skills the more you use it. We confirmed this through the official repository and Nous Portal.
In this reply, Nous Research added, "You can connect it to any provider, subscription, or model, and if you run it on your own computer or use the free models on Nous Portal, it's completely free."
35 to 50 instances for one month of SuperGrok
In a follow-up post, Nous Research said that "an idle small Hermes Cloud instance is 200 to 300 times cheaper than an idle SuperGrok subscription," and put forward the figure that "one month of a SuperGrok subscription could run 35 to 50 Hermes Cloud instances around the clock."
This figure is a comparison Nous Research published itself on its own account, and it hasn't been independently verified by a third party.
MIT license, completely free on your own computer
Nous Portal is a subscription service launched on April 27, 2026, bundling more than 300 models along with web search, image generation, text-to-speech (TTS), and browser automation tools under a single login. Beyond a free evaluation tier ($0.10 in monthly credit), real use requires the $20-a-month Plus plan or your own API keys.
In other words, the agent itself is released for free, but always-on remote execution and access to a range of models come with a separate subscription or cloud usage fees. Note that "completely free" applies only to running it locally.