# Hermes is a big upgrade on OpenClaw

Published: 2026-04-19T00:00:00.000Z
Canonical: https://wow.pjh.is/journal/hermes

[Hermes Agent](https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/) beats OpenClaw due to:

* Better learning mechanisms (especially: [auto-generated skills](https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/skills/#agent-managed-skills-skill_manage-tool)).
* Better [permission guards](https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/security/#dangerous-command-approval).
* Easier to reason about (smaller codebase and [good documentation](https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/overview)).

It works well with Slack and Discord.[^1] You can create channels for each major project, and Hermes replies in a thread, rather than polluting the top-level stream.

The migration tool made it easy to switch.

![Image](https://wow.pjh.is/static/images/blog/hermes-discord.jpeg)

[^1]: I chose Discord over Slack because I want to work in my agent workspace without seeing Slack notifications.