The closest alternative to Hermes 4 70B is Ministral 3 14B 2512 — comparable intelligence (16.0 vs 16.0); for a cheaper option, Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) runs Free/M vs $0.130/M; for more speed, Mercury 2 hits 590 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Ministral 3 14B 2512 is the closest alternative to Hermes 4 70B, with an Intelligence Index of 16.0 (Hermes 4 70B scores 16.0) at $0.200 per million input tokens.
Yes — Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) costs Free per million input tokens versus $0.130 for Hermes 4 70B, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Hermes 4 70B — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.