# Chroma vs Marqo

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Chroma

| Attribute | Chroma | Marqo |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 67.6 (70% (medium)) | 32.1 (22% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 81 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 6,246 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 29,148 | - |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 2,592,643 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | AI-native ecommerce search and product discovery platform that leverages semantic search, behavioral data, and personalization to improve product relevance, conversion rates, and average order value for online retail brands. |
| features.capabilities | `{"deployment":"self_hosted","serverless":true,"storage_tier":"tiered","hybrid_search":true,"licence_class":"permissive_oss","multi_tenancy":true,"product_class":"dedicated_dbms","full_text_bm25":true,"horizontal_scale":"sharded_distributed","metadata_filtering":"pre_filter"}` | `{"deployment":"managed","serverless":true,"licence_class":"proprietary","multi_tenancy":true,"product_class":"dedicated_dbms","horizontal_scale":"sharded_distributed"}` |
| language.primary | Rust | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Starter","summary":"Free tier plus metered charges for write, storage, query, and network","features":["10 databases","10 team members","Community Slack"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":2.5,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.33,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.0075,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.09,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Get up and running quickly with free credits then usage-based pricing","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"databases":"10","free_credits":"$5","team_members":"10"}},{"free":false,"name":"Team","summary":"$250/month with $100 included credits, plus overage metering","features":["100 databases","30 team members","Slack support","SOC II compliance","Volume-based discounts"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":250,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":2.5,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.33,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.0075,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.09,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Scale production workloads with included credits and priority support","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"databases":"100","team_members":"30","monthly_credits":"$100"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing negotiated per deployment","features":["Unlimited databases","Unlimited team members","Dedicated support","Single tenant clusters","BYOC clusters","SLAs"],"description":"Security, scale, and dedicated support for organizations with custom requirements","contactSales":true}],"summary":"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.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.trychroma.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T11:06:40.719Z","startingPrice":{"amount":0.0075,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"quote","sourceUrl":"https://marqo.ai","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T20:44:47.208Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | commercial | quote |
| pricing.price_level | low | unknown |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| release.cadence_days | 4 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/latest","date":"2025-04-01T23:29:39Z","type":"prerelease","version":"latest"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.9","date":"2026-05-05T05:55:40Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.4.4","date":"2026-05-05T04:47:11Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.4.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/foundation-cli-v0.1.0-alpha.3","date":"2026-05-01T00:44:16Z","type":"prerelease","version":"foundation-cli-v0.1.0-alpha.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.8","date":"2026-04-16T23:35:52Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.7","date":"2026-04-08T07:49:29Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.4.3","date":"2026-04-08T04:25:36Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.6","date":"2026-04-07T03:01:03Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.4.2","date":"2026-04-04T15:46:18Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.5","date":"2026-03-10T09:30:59Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.3","date":"2026-03-07T19:07:43Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.2","date":"2026-02-27T19:50:12Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.1","date":"2026-02-19T20:01:23Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.4.1","date":"2026-02-19T19:30:48Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.5.0","date":"2026-02-09T08:47:05Z","type":"stable","version":"1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.4.0","date":"2026-02-09T05:36:21Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.4.1","date":"2026-01-14T19:19:18Z","type":"stable","version":"1.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.3.1","date":"2026-01-13T21:17:59Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/1.4.0","date":"2025-12-24T02:59:03Z","type":"stable","version":"1.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/releases/tag/cli-1.3.0","date":"2025-12-24T01:22:45Z","type":"stable","version":"cli-1.3.0"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 5.1 | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":4,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=chromadb&per_page=100","last_12m":4,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` | - |

## Capabilities (Vector Databases)

| Capability | Chroma | Marqo |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Managed |
| Serverless / consumption pricing | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Index** |  |  |
| ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat) | - | - |
| Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean) | - | - |
| **Query** |  |  |
| Metadata filtering | Pre-filter | - |
| Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion) | ✓ | - |
| Built-in BM25 / lexical | ✓ | - |
| **Storage** |  |  |
| Quantization | - | - |
| On-disk vs in-memory | Tiered | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Horizontal scale | Sharded / distributed | Sharded / distributed |
| **Consistency** |  |  |
| Consistency | - | - |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Proprietary |
| **Classification** |  |  |
| Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent | Dedicated DBMS | Dedicated DBMS |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:10:16.739Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*