A while back I wrote a comparison of OpenClaw and Hermes — two open-source, self-hosted AI agents I run on the same bare-metal box, both wired to Telegram. The verdict was that they're complementary: OpenClaw as the dependable gateway for scheduled delivery, Hermes as the agent that builds context over time. Run both, I said. Don't choose. Then I actually lived with both for a few more weeks, and the verdict started to move. OpenClaw is gateway-first : a messaging hub that runs plugins, models,