Hermes (Grok 4.6) vs ChatGPT Work on a text-to-PDF task

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-08-14 · Open on X

Topics: AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP, AI Dev Tools & Productivity · Level: beginner

Summary

A one-off speed comparison on a simple task: turning text into a PDF. Hermes running Grok 4.6 took about 1 minute and ChatGPT Work took 3m 34s, so Hermes was more than 3× faster. This is a single anecdote, not a benchmark.

Key points

• Task: convert text to a PDF
• Hermes with Grok 4.6: about 1 minute
• ChatGPT Work: 3m 34s
• Hermes was more than 3× faster on this one task (a single anecdote)

Resources mentioned

• Hermes Agent · tool · github.com · free
  Nous Research's open-source AI agent with CLI, TUI and desktop interfaces. It now supports hands-free activation with a wake word.
  Also in: Inspecting Coding-Agent Traces Live with JSONL Viewer (Codex, Claude Code) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Hermes Agent: each bot is its own profile (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), An X research bot built with Hermes (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Run Your Hermes Agent on Free LFM2.5-2.6B via OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 55 more
• Grok 4.6 · tool · x.ai · paid
  xAI's latest frontier LLM, announced as an improvement over Grok 4.5 at the same price.
  Also in: Creator's Top 3 Closed Models: Fable 5, GPT 5.6 Sol, Grok 4.6 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Plan with a Strong Model, Execute with a Cheaper One (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Grok 4.6 release: better than Grok 4.5 at the same price (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
• ChatGPT Work · tool · chatgpt.com · check price
  ChatGPT workspace on web and mobile for creating docs, decks, sites and spreadsheets and handling complex tasks.
  Also in: ChatGPT Voice Update: Plugins, Model Switching and ChatGPT Work (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), ChatGPT Work: A Cloud Agent Built on the Codex Harness That Books Travel (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), ChatGPT Voice on Desktop: Directing Codex and Agents by Voice (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)