How much memory does Hermes Agent need?

Short answer. Once it runs, Hermes Agent is light: in our tests the gateway used about 200 to 260 MB of RAM at rest, with Telegram and Discord set up but not connected (our test tokens were refused). Installing and updating it is what needs memory. With Nous Research's installer, the first install peaked at 1,277 MB and an update at 1,412 MB under a 2 GB limit, and both were killed for lack of memory under a 1 GB limit. So plan on 2 GB for a server where Hermes Agent installs and updates itself. Hermes Agent's Docker docs give 1 GB as the minimum for its ready-made image and 2 to 4 GB as the recommendation.

Checked on 7 November 2026, accurate for Hermes Agent v0.23.0.

These numbers come from our own tests on a Linux server on 6 November 2026, each in a throwaway container capped at 512 MB, 1 GB or 2 GB of memory and one CPU core, with the installer's browser and computer-use tools left out (--skip-browser --skip-computer-use) and test tokens instead of real ones, so no AI model was answering and neither chat app was connected. We say where a number comes from Hermes Agent's docs instead.

What Hermes Agent's docs say

• Docker image: minimum 1 GB of memory, 1 CPU core and 500 MB of disk; recommended 2 to 4 GB, 2 cores and 2 GB or more of disk, which grows with sessions and skills.
• The same page: browser automation (Playwright and Chromium) is the most memory-hungry feature. Without browser tools, 1 GB is enough for the image; with them, allocate at least 2 GB.
• The README says Hermes Agent runs "on a $5 VPS". It does not give a memory figure for the install script.

What we measured

Disk: the install took 2.5 GB and 3.0 GB after one update, mostly Hermes Agent's own copy of its code with its packages, and its tools (Node.js, FFmpeg and others the installer fetches).

We did not test the ready-made Docker image, whose code is already built. Our judgment: the 1 GB failures came from building and updating the code on the server, which the image does not do, so the Docker page's 1 GB and our 2 GB need not contradict each other.

What makes it use more

We have not measured an agent in daily use yet, so this list comes from Hermes Agent's docs, not our numbers:

• Browser automation: the docs' heaviest feature, and the reason for their 2 GB with browser tools.
• Updates: in our test an update needed more memory than the first install.
• Local models: running a model on the same machine needs memory for the model itself; with an API key, the model runs at your provider.
• Sessions and skills: the docs say the data folder grows with them. That is disk, not memory.

How to tell you are short of memory

• The installer or hermes update stops after many minutes, or a process ends with exit code 137 (killed by the kernel's out-of-memory killer).
• The install or update takes far longer than usual: at 1 GB our failures came after 9 to 12 minutes, against 1.5 to 2.5 minutes at 2 GB.

Memory on PlayNHost

Hermes Agent plans have 2 GB, 4 GB or 8 GB. There is no smaller one because of the install and update results above: the start refuses to run Hermes Agent on a server with less than 1,900 MB, with a sentence instead of an install that keeps getting killed:

[PlayNHost] Hermes Agent needs at least 2 GB of memory, and this server has 1024 MB.

• 2 GB is the minimum, and it covers the install and updates in our tests: the update peak left about 600 MB of process memory free and nothing was killed. On a real PlayNHost server, the first install peaked at 1.36 GB and the folder took 2.4 GB of disk; the 2 GB plan has 12 GB of disk.
• 4 GB or more is for agents that do heavier work. That is our judgment, not a measurement: we have no numbers for busy agents yet. If your agent is killed for memory, the next size up is the fix.

Every start checks for a new stable release and installs it (about 20 seconds when there is nothing new), so the update peak comes back after each Hermes Agent release. You can turn that off with Update Hermes Agent on every start under Code, Settings. See how to run Hermes Agent 24/7 for the full setup, or create a Hermes Agent server.

PlayNHost is not affiliated with Nous Research. Hermes Agent is open-source software under the MIT licence.