Comparison

Open Agent vs The Abyss

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Open Agent

Features
Read full description

Open Agent gives you a private Hermes Agent on your phone. Create your agent, open its Convos group, and start chatting. No terminal, no server setup, no Docker, and no MacBook running 24/7. Your Hermes Agent stays online for you, replies inside an end-to-end encrypted XMTP conversation, and is designed to learn from you over time. Teach it preferences, context, and tasks through natural chat. Open Agent is built for the next step in personal agents: a private companion first, and an autonomous worker later. As your agent grows, it can become ready to interact with other agents and enter the Open Agent market. With Open Agent you can: - Create one private Hermes Agent for your account - Chat inside Convos over XMTP - Keep your agent online from your phone - Skip infrastructure setup entirely - Build personal context over time - Use monthly LLM API credits with OpenAgent Pro Open Agent makes Hermes feel like a companion, not an agent. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

The Abyss

Features
Read full description

The Abyss is the iOS companion for Hermes - your self-hosted AI agent running on your own machine. Connect over your local network or Tailscale, send prompts, watch the agent think and reach for tools in real time. The Abyss is a remote control. Hermes is the brain. You own both. Built for people who already host their own things. CHAT - Live token streaming. Watch the agent's reply appear as it's generated. - Transparent tool calls. See the agent reach into your shell, files, or the web - with each tool's name and arguments shown as a card. - Multimodal. Attach images from the photo library and send them with your prompt. - Slash commands. Trigger agent-side commands from a clean, keyboard-friendly composer. VOICE MODE - Hands-free conversation. Dictate prompts and hear the reply spoken back. - On-device transcription. Your voice is transcribed locally; the text is what gets sent to your agent. - Bring-your-own TTS. If your Hermes backend streams text-to-speech, you hear the agent in a neural voice; otherwise it falls back to iOS voices. SESSIONS - Server-side history. Every conversation lives on your own Hermes server, not ours. - Searchable, renameable, pinnable. Find the thread you need, give it a name, keep it on top. - Local cache. Scroll the transcript even when you're offline. MULTIPLE BACKENDS - Run more than one Hermes instance? Add them all. Switch active with one tap. - Pair a second device by scanning a QR code. Credentials never cross our servers - we don't have any. - Each backend gets its own identity colour so you always know which agent you're talking to. DEMO MODE - Not running Hermes yet? Try the demo. A scripted preview shows how the real client behaves, without any setup. No account, no network, no obligation. PRIVACY-FIRST BY DESIGN - All credentials live in iOS Keychain. Face ID required before revealing or sharing them. - No analytics. No third-party SDKs. No telemetry. - The Abyss only talks to the backends you point it at. Apple processes any future purchases; that's the only third party in the loop. - App data flows between your device and your own Hermes backend. Nothing else. REQUIREMENTS - A running Hermes Agent on a machine you control. - Network reachability to that machine. Same Wi-Fi works; Tailscale (or another mesh) is recommended if you want to reach the agent from anywhere. The Abyss is not a hosted AI service. It is a remote control for an AI agent you host yourself.

Screenshots

Open Agent4 screens
The Abyss4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: The Abyss at none against Open Agent's 2. On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Open Agent sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. The Abyss asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Open Agent ships an update every 9 days, The Abyss every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
Open Agent versus The Abyss: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOpen AgentThe Abyss
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 9 daysEvery 5 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhone, iPad โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS26.0 โ€” better26.5
Further details โ€” not scored
Size101 MB11 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperHoang Nguyen VuVladimir Adamovic

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Open Agent

Subscriptions2
  • OpenAgent Pro Weekly$4.997 Days
  • OpenAgent Pro Yearly3 Days trial$99.991 Year
None

The Abyss

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Open Agent free?
Open Agent is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is The Abyss free?
The Abyss is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Open Agent or The Abyss have ads?
Neither Open Agent nor The Abyss shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Open Agent or The Abyss?
Open Agent ships an update every 9 days, and The Abyss every 5 days. Most recently, Open Agent was updated on October 25, 2026 and The Abyss on October 25, 2026.

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