TextButler compared with Hermes Agent

What Hermes Agent does

Hermes Agent is an MIT-licensed agent from Nous Research that keeps conversations, memories, and skills across sessions and writes new skills as it works. It has desktop apps for macOS and Windows, a terminal installer for Linux, and an optional hosted deployment. You bring your own model provider or buy credits through Nous Portal.

Its messaging gateway is one background process, run as a launchd agent on macOS, that connects to Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, email, iMessage through BlueBubbles or Photon, and many more apps. By default the gateway ignores anyone who is not on an allowlist or paired through a one-time code.

For WhatsApp, its docs recommend a dedicated phone number for the bot, with a self-chat mode on your own number for testing, because the bridge is unofficial. For iMessage, it uses the Apple ID signed in to Messages on a Mac running BlueBubbles Server. In admitted groups it answers every message by default; you can require a mention instead.

What TextButler does

TextButler runs on your Mac as a command line, a guided terminal, and a background service, with no window or menu bar icon. GhostGet, a separate Mac tool, connects it to iMessage, WhatsApp, and Beeper. You turn it on one direct or group conversation at a time; new installations start paused, and new conversations start turned off.

Once a conversation is on, TextButler answers by default only messages that contain the word “butler”, and it waits 5 minutes after you last wrote there. Replies go out from your own account wrapped in a marker, such as 🤖{ On Monday Sam said Friday at 6:30. }, which you can change or clear per conversation. Each conversation keeps its own notes as ordinary files on your Mac. Replies can be written by a local model through Ollama, by Qwen through your own Vercel AI Gateway key, or by your Claude Code, Codex, or Devin subscription through xcb. The reply model works only with that conversation’s notes, optional web search, and proposed messages; it gets no shell and no other files on your Mac.

Can Hermes Agent reply in my iMessage group chats?

Yes, through BlueBubbles on a Mac signed in to your Apple ID. Its docs say it answers every authorized direct or group message by default, and you can require a mention for groups. TextButler answers only in conversations you turn on, and by default only to messages that contain “butler”.

Where does each one run?

Hermes Agent runs on your computer or a server, and its iMessage connection needs an always-on Mac running BlueBubbles Server. TextButler runs only on your Mac, which must stay awake and signed in.

Do they mark AI replies?

TextButler wraps replies in 🤖{ } by default and keeps a visible marker in your own chat. The Hermes Agent messaging docs do not describe a reply marker. For WhatsApp they recommend a dedicated bot number, so people message the bot rather than you.