The closest alternative to Hermes 3 70B Instruct is Nova Lite 1.0 — comparable intelligence (12.7 vs 12.6); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M3 runs $0.300/M vs $0.700/M; for more speed, Mercury 2 hits 590 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Nova Lite 1.0 is the closest alternative to Hermes 3 70B Instruct, with an Intelligence Index of 12.7 (Hermes 3 70B Instruct scores 12.6) at $0.060 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M3 costs $0.300 per million input tokens versus $0.700 for Hermes 3 70B Instruct, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Hermes 3 70B Instruct — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.