Comparison

Chroma vs Zilliz Cloud

On the evidence we track, Zilliz Cloud leads this comparison with a composite score of 80/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLAll open, no key required.
Chroma65
Zilliz Cloud80
Score
vioscaleAI score
Chroma65 / 100medium · 70%
Zilliz Cloud80 / 100medium · 74%
Pricing
Free tier
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Model
Zilliz Cloudfreemium
Price level
Chromalow
Zilliz Cloudhigh
Starting price
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud$197
Transparent
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Integrations
Count
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud1,000
Security
Certifications
Chroma
Gdpr
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Hipaa
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Iso27001
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Scorecard
Chroma5.1
Zilliz Cloud
Soc2
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Trust center
Chroma
Reliability
Sla pct
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud99.95
Status page
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Adoption
Dependent repos
Chroma6,246
Zilliz Cloud
Github stars
Chroma29,270
Zilliz Cloud
Package downloads weekly
Chroma2,592,643
Zilliz Cloud
Activity
Commits last 30d
Chroma35
Zilliz Cloud
Release
Cadence days
Chroma4
Zilliz Cloud
History
Chroma20 items
Zilliz Cloud
License
Spdx
Zilliz Cloud
Language
Primary
ChromaRust
Zilliz Cloud
Content
Faq
Chroma7 items
Zilliz Cloud6 items

Capabilities

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

Deployment
Deployment
ChromaSelf-hosted
Zilliz CloudManaged
Serverless / consumption pricing
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Index
ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
Chroma-
Zilliz CloudHNSW, IVF, FLAT (brute-force), SCANN, DiskANN
Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
Chroma-
Zilliz Cloudcosine, Euclidean
Query
Metadata filtering
ChromaPre-filter
Zilliz CloudPost-filter
Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Built-in BM25 / lexical
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Storage
Quantization
Chroma-
Zilliz Cloud-
On-disk vs in-memory
ChromaTiered
Zilliz CloudTiered
Scale
Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Horizontal scale
ChromaSharded / distributed
Zilliz CloudSharded / distributed
Consistency
Consistency
Chroma-
Zilliz Cloud-
Licensing
Licence class
ChromaPermissive OSS
Zilliz CloudProprietary
Classification
Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
ChromaDedicated DBMS
Zilliz CloudDedicated DBMS

What each one is

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

Chroma

A search system enabling simultaneous vector similarity, full-text, and structured metadata queries across large datasets. Deployable as open-source self-hosted infrastructure or managed cloud service with usage-based pricing, supporting multi-tenant workloads and distributed scaling.

Independently observed

Zilliz Cloud

Leader

Zilliz Cloud is a managed cloud service built on the open-source Milvus vector database. It handles storage, indexing, and similarity search at scale for unstructured data, supporting vector search, full-text search, and hybrid retrieval for AI and machine learning workloads.

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 ↗

Zilliz Cloud

Leader
from $197/moHybridFree tier30-day trial

Free tier with 5 GB storage. Serverless pricing from $0/month pay-per-query. Dedicated clusters from $197/month. Annual commitments available.

  • FreeFree
    • Community support via Slack
    • Vector search
    • Filtered search
    • Range search
  • ServerlessPay-per-query pricing, system-managed auto-scaling
    • Fully managed vector databases
    • Backup and restore
    • Basic monitoring
    • Built-in encryption for data in transit and at rest
    • Vector search
    • +2 more
  • DedicatedFrom $197/month base, plus $0.126/GB storage, dedicated infrastructure
    • 99.95% uptime SLA
    • SSO (SAML 2.0)
    • Granular RBAC
    • Multi-replica and elastic scaling
    • Global cluster with disaster recovery
    • +9 more
  • BYOCContact sales
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

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

Platforms
Web
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
CLI
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Self-hosted
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud
Hybrid
Chroma
Zilliz Cloud

Integrations

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

Chroma

Not documented yet.

Zilliz Cloud

Leader
32 total
  • AWS
  • Google Cloud
  • Azure
  • LangChain
  • Fivetran
  • Google Ads
  • Google Analytics 4
  • Google Search Console
  • Google Sheets
  • Hubspot
  • LinkedIn Ad Analytics
  • Marketo
  • Microsoft Advertising
  • NetSuite SuiteAnalytics
  • Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications
  • Apache SeaTunnel
  • PostgreSQL/Pgvector
  • PyMilvus
  • Claude
  • Prometheus
  • HoneyHive
  • Cohere
  • Haystack
  • FiftyOne
  • +8 more
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Chroma or Zilliz Cloud: 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.