Rome Ho-Ho tour worth it?

Look at the bus scheduled stops very carefully. The HOHO buses in Rome do not work as well as many other cities because of the crowds and the pedestrian zones that prevent the buses from get close to some areas. I do think the Archaeology bus route is good but it has been several years. The booths for the buses are across the plaza to the west from Termini.

I wouldn’t do it. The historic center is very compact, probably in about 3 or 4 hours you can walk by most of the major sights. It’s easy to do with google maps.

I have not done the Rome HoHo tour BUT on my first visit to Rome I booked an airport pick up with a sightseeing tour so I could get "oriented". Well, laughing....it did NOT help and I am pretty good with directions! Wow....what a maze and the driver had to keep zig-zagging to get around the aforementioned pedestrian zones. Unless the archeology tour route Frank mentions meets your needs, I'd give it a pass.

Thanks for your help everybody!

Kathie

I thought that the Archeobus died a death about 5 or 6 years BC - before covid. Is it resurrected?

Yep, Archeobus/110 Open Bus threw in the towel 10 years ago.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/rome-110-open-and-archeobus-no-longer-in-business

Apparently there is a hoho that covers some of the Appia Antica but it's a specific route that doesn't include stops nearer some of the other attractions.
https://www.bigbustours.com/en/rome/purple-route-rome

Having kept an eye on hoho reports for quite some time, they don't appear to work as well for Rome as for other cities. Too many streets are too narrow to accommodate large buses, and people report having to walk much further to listed attractions than expected from the stops to see them. People have also reported having to wait for long periods of time at the stops when buses have been too full to pick them up - I'm thinking that mostly applies to the busiest seasons - and lots of other issues but to be fair, some folks have had positive experiences. Still, reviews on the companies own websites are curiously much more positive than those on, say, TA or Yelp, Here's just one example of TA reviews for possibly the biggest company:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g187791-d11484022-or10-Big_Bus_Rome_Hop_on_Hop_off_Open_Top_Tour-Rome_Lazio.html

A HoHo bus in Rome would be a waste of money. They can’t get near the antiquites sites you want to see.,

Not sure about Rome but we just did one in Athens and it was horrible. Because of traffic and crowds we could not get around hardly at all. We took the bus from stop 4 to stop 5 then got off and walked to where we wanted to go. Had a much better experience. I assume Rome would be similar with traffic and crowds.