---
title: "Hermes: Real-Time Price Data Service for Pyth Network"
description: >-
  Provides real-time Pythnet and Wormhole price data via REST APIs and
  server-sent events (SSE) for on-chain verification.
full: false
index: false
---

# Hermes

[Hermes][hermes-repo] is a web service that listens to the Pythnet and the Wormhole Network for Pyth price updates, and
serves them via a convenient web API. It provides Pyth's latest price update data format that are more cost-effective
to verify and use on-chain.

Hermes allows users to easily query for recent price updates via a REST API, or subscribe to a server-side events stream
for streaming updates. The Pyth Network's Javascript SDKs connect to an instance of Hermes to fetch price updates.

[hermes-repo]: https://github.com/pyth-network/pyth-crosschain/tree/main/apps/hermes

## Documentation

The [Hermes API Documentation](https://hermes.pyth.network/docs) provides a comprehensive explanation of Hermes API for
user interaction. You can use [the price service client library in
JS](https://github.com/pyth-network/pyth-crosschain/tree/main/price_service/client/js) to interact with Hermes.

Here's an example of retrieving the latest update of the ETH/USD price feed using `curl`.

```bash
# Example API call
$ curl https://hermes.pyth.network/api/latest_price_feeds?ids[]=0xff61491a931112ddf1bd8147cd1b641375f79f5825126d665480874634fd0ace

# Example Response
[{"id":"ff61491a931112ddf1bd8147cd1b641375f79f5825126d665480874634fd0ace","price":{"price":"184136023127","conf":"177166324","expo":-8,"publish_time":1692110601},"ema_price":{"price":"184100641000","conf":"178704085","expo":-8,"publish_time":1692110601}}]
```

## Accessing Hermes

Hermes is a permissionless service that can either be self-hosted or accessed through a third-party provider (similar to a blockchain RPC).
The Pyth Data Association also operates a public instance for development purposes.
Please see [Hermes API Instances and Providers](../api-instances-and-providers/hermes) for more details.
