vioscaleAI
Comparison

Chroma vs txtai

No clear leader: Chroma (62.6) and txtai (61.2) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Chroma full profile →txtai full profile →
Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Chroma63
txtai61
Score
vioscaleAI score
Chroma63 / 100high · 75%
txtai61 / 100medium · 56%
Pricing
Free tier
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Model
Price level
Chromalow
txtaifree
Transparent
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Integrations
Count
Chroma2
txtai5
Security
Gdpr
Chroma✓
txtai–
Scorecard
Chroma5.1
txtai5.4
Soc2
Chroma✓
txtai–
Vulnerabilities
Reliability
Status page
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
Chroma6,246
txtai14
Github stars
Chroma29,495
txtai13,018
Package downloads weekly
Chroma1,906,768
txtai–
Activity
Commits last 30d
Chroma41
txtai100
Release
Cadence days
Chroma4
txtai27
History
Chroma20 items
txtai20 items
License
Spdx
Language
Primary
ChromaRust
txtaiPython
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
Chroma7 items
txtai6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for vector databases. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Deployment
ChromaSelf-hosted
txtaiEmbedded
Serverless / consumption pricing
Chroma✓
txtai-
Index
ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
ChromaHNSW
txtaiHNSW, IVF, IVFSparse, milvus-lite, turbovec, zvec
Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
Chroma-
txtaicosine
Query
Metadata filtering
ChromaPre-filter
txtaiPre-filter
Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Built-in BM25 / lexical
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Storage
Quantization
ChromaBinary
txtaiScalar
On-disk vs in-memory
ChromaTiered
txtaiDisk-backed
Scale
Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Horizontal scale
ChromaSharded / distributed
txtaiSharded / distributed
Consistency
Consistency
Chroma-
txtaiTunable
Licensing
Licence class
ChromaPermissive OSS
txtaiPermissive OSS
Classification
Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
ChromaDedicated DBMS
txtaiDedicated DBMS

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Chroma

A vector search system offering serverless infrastructure with vector, hybrid, and full-text search capabilities that handles embeddings and indexing automatically.

Independently observed

txtai

txtai is an open-source Python framework for building semantic search applications, LLM-powered agents, retrieval augmented generation systems, and language model workflows with support for multiple vector backends and integration with various LLMs.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Chroma

from $0.01/moHybridFree tier

Freemium model with usage-based metering. Starter plan free with $5 credits; Team plan $250/month plus metered charges with $100 included credits; Enterprise with custom pricing.

  • StarterFree
    • 10 databases
    • 10 team members
    • Community Slack
  • Team$250/month with $100 included credits, plus overage metering
    • 100 databases
    • 30 team members
    • Slack support
    • SOC II compliance
    • Volume-based discounts
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • Unlimited databases
    • Unlimited team members
    • Dedicated support
    • Single tenant clusters
    • BYOC clusters
    • +1 more
as of verify ↗

txtai

Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Chroma✓
txtai✓
CLI
Chroma✓
txtai✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Chroma✓
txtai✗
Self-hosted
Chroma✓
txtai✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

Chroma

2 total
  • Gemini
  • Superlinked
Independently observed

txtai

12 total
  • llama.cpp
  • LiteLLM
  • Hugging Face
  • OpenAI
  • Claude
  • AWS Bedrock
  • smolagents
  • OpenCode
  • DuckDB
  • Milvus
  • LiteRT
  • Model Context Protocol
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Chroma or txtai: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.