OpenClaw vs. Hermes Agent: The race to build AI assistants that never forget

OpenClaw and Hermes Agent are open-source projects and prominent examples of persistent AI agents.

The AI agent landscape is split into session-bound tools and persistent agents running on infrastructure.

Session-based tools are stateless, wiped on restart, fast, disposable, and lack ongoing context.

Persistent agents run long-term with learning loops, retain learned information, and can improve over time.

Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor are session-native: powerful within a session but limited across sessions; some users use CLAUDE.md files and memory directories as workarounds.