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Hermes 4 405B vs Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent: API price, context & features · api14

Nous: Hermes 4 405B vs SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent

A side-by-side comparison of Nous: Hermes 4 405B ($3.50 / 1M tokens) and SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent ($4.38 / 1M tokens) using current USD prices and capabilities from the api14 catalog. Both run through the same OpenAI-compatible API.

Specifications

	Nous: Hermes 4 405B	SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent
Provider	Nous	xAI
Input	$3.50 / 1M tokens	$4.38 / 1M tokens
Output	$10.50 / 1M tokens	$8.75 / 1M tokens
Cache read	$0.70 / 1M tokens	$0.70 / 1M tokens
Web search	-	$17.50 / 1K searches
Context window	131,072	2,000,000
Max output	117,964	1,800,000
Input	text	text, image, file
Output	text	text
Tool calling
Structured output
Reasoning control
Added	Aug 26, 2025	Mar 31, 2026

Key differences

Nous: Hermes 4 405B is 20% cheaper on input tokens.
SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent is 17% cheaper on output tokens.
SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent reads 15.3× more context (2,000,000 tokens).
A request with 1,000 input and 500 output tokens costs $0.00875 with Nous: Hermes 4 405B and $0.00875 with SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent.

In depth

Nous: Hermes 4 405B is a text model from Nous, released on 2025-08-26. SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent is a text model from xAI, released on 2026-03-31. Both are served through api14 as chat models in the text category, and both are aimed at developers who want a hosted model behind an OpenAI-compatible endpoint rather than something they run themselves.

The clearest split is context and input handling. Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent accepts text, images and files as input and offers a context window of 2,000,000 tokens, while Hermes 4 405B accepts text only and offers 131,072 tokens. If your prompt includes screenshots, scanned pages, PDFs or other uploaded files, or if you need to keep a very large body of material in a single request, Grok is the one that fits. On sampling controls the two overlap heavily: both expose temperature, top_p, top_k on the Hermes side, max_tokens, logprobs, top_logprobs, response_format, structured_outputs and reasoning flags. Hermes adds frequency_penalty, presence_penalty and repetition_penalty, which is useful when you are fighting loops or want to steer verbosity through penalties. Grok adds reasoning_effort and seed, so you can dial reasoning intensity and get more reproducible sampling. Neither model is listed as uniquely supporting tools or structured outputs, so treat those as available on both rather than a deciding factor.

For everyday text work such as summarisation, extraction, rewriting, classification and chat, Hermes 4 405B is a reasonable default, and it is the cheaper of the two on input. If your workload is output heavy, note that Grok is the cheaper side on output, so long generations can shift the balance. For tasks that need images or files in the prompt, or that need to hold hundreds of thousands of tokens of context at once, pick Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent; the 2,000,000 token window and the extra input modalities are the reasons. If you need penalty based control over repetition, or you are already tuned to Hermes style prompts, stay with Hermes. If you want to tune reasoning effort per request or use a seed for more stable comparisons across runs, Grok gives you those knobs.

Calling either one through api14 works the same way. Point your OpenAI client at the api14 base URL, send a normal chat completions request, and set the model field to "nousresearch/hermes-4-405b" or "x-ai/grok-4.20-multi-agent". Everything else in the request body stays as you already write it: messages, temperature, max_tokens, response_format and the rest. Switching between the two is a one line change to the model id, which makes it cheap to benchmark both on your own data before committing. Just remember that image and file content parts only make sense on the Grok id, and that penalty parameters only apply on the Hermes id.

There are cases where the other model still wins. If you are on Hermes and you hit a wall because the prompt needs an image or a file, or because 131,072 tokens is not enough, Grok is the better pick even if you prefer Hermes elsewhere. If you are on Grok and your main problem is repetitive output that you want to suppress with penalties, or you want the lower input price for a large volume of short prompts, Hermes is the better pick. Neither choice is permanent, since the model id is the only thing you change.

Switch with one string

Both models use the same endpoint and request shape. Change the model value from "nousresearch/hermes-4-405b" to "x-ai/grok-4.20-multi-agent" and prompts, streaming and tools keep working.

Nous: Hermes 4 405B details & playground →SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent details & playground →

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api14.com/api/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.API14_API_KEY,
});

const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
  "model": "x-ai/grok-4.20-multi-agent",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Explain vector databases in two sentences."
    }
  ]
});
console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);

Nous: Hermes 4 405B vs SpaceXAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent

Specifications

Key differences

In depth

Switch with one string

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