Available worldwide · Popular in: US
What is 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.
Chroma pricing
Plans, per-tier features and add-ons, dated and linked to live pricing. Pricing changes often; always verify at source before you rely on it.
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.
Starter
FreeGet up and running quickly with free credits then usage-based pricing
- databases
- 10
- free_credits
- $5
- team_members
- 10
- 10 databases
- 10 team members
- Community Slack
Team
Scale production workloads with included credits and priority support
- databases
- 100
- team_members
- 30
- monthly_credits
- $100
- 100 databases
- 30 team members
- Slack support
- SOC II compliance
- Volume-based discounts
Enterprise
Contact salesSecurity, scale, and dedicated support for organizations with custom requirements
- Unlimited databases
- Unlimited team members
- Dedicated support
- Single tenant clusters
- BYOC clusters
- SLAs
What Chroma does
The capabilities that matter for vector databases, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Deployment
- Self-hosted
- Serverless / consumption pricing
- ✓
- ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
- -
- Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
- -
- Metadata filtering
- Pre-filter
- Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
- ✓
- Built-in BM25 / lexical
- ✓
- Quantization
- -
- On-disk vs in-memory
- Tiered
- Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
- ✓
- Horizontal scale
- Sharded / distributed
- Consistency
- -
- Licence class
- Permissive OSS
- Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
- Dedicated DBMS
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- Web
- Cloud / SaaS
- Hybrid
- Self-hosted
Security & compliance
Known vulnerabilities: 4 (4 in the last 12 months), max severity CRITICAL sourcea count reflects scale & disclosure, not quality
Chroma FAQ
Common questions about Chroma, answered from independent, dated evidence.
What is 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. It is indexed under Vector Databases.
Is Chroma free to use?
Chroma is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. A commercial or hosted edition starts at $0.01. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.
What platforms does Chroma support?
Chroma supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.
Can Chroma be self-hosted?
Yes. Chroma can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.
What security certifications does Chroma have?
We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and GDPR for Chroma. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Chroma not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.
Source: https://www.trychroma.com
Is Chroma open source?
Yes. Chroma is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.
Where is Chroma available?
Chroma is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.
Chroma alternatives
Other vector databases we track, ranked by the same independent score.
- Zilliz CloudA fully managed cloud service for storing, indexing, and searching high-dimensional vector data at scalemedium · 74%
- PineconeManaged vector database infrastructure for machine learning applicationshigh · 75%
- TurbopufferA database combining vector similarity and text search built on cloud storagemedium · 61%
- EpsillaCreate AI agents without needing engineering resourceslow · 30%
- WeaviateA vector database platform designed for building AI-powered semantic search applicationshigh · 75%
- txtaiAn integrated AI framework for vector search, language model orchestration, and semantic workflow automationmedium · 57%
Compare Chroma
Side by side against other vector databases, attribute by attribute, with a source on every value.
The vioscaleAI score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Chroma, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release cadence | 98 | 0.08 | 7.9 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 67 | 0.10 | 6.6 | ✓ |
| Development activity | 49 | 0.14 | 6.6 | ✓ |
| Security posture | 45 | 0.12 | 5.5 | ✓ |
| Pricing transparency | 100 | 0.05 | 5.4 | ✓ |
| Stars | 84 | 0.05 | 4.0 | ✓ |
| Reliability | 50 | 0.07 | 3.4 | ✓ |
| Dependent projects | 63 | 0.05 | 3.4 | ✓ |
| Package downloads | 83 | 0.04 | 3.4 | ✓ |
| Price level | 80 | 0.04 | 3.3 | ✓ |
| Security score | 51 | 0.05 | 2.8 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 0 | 0.05 | 0.0 | - |
| Developer Q&A activity | 0 | 0.14 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 35 | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 65% |
Adoption
Content
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Faq | 7 items | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 66% |
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | Deployment: self_hosted · Serverless: Yes · Storage tier: tiered · Hybrid search: Yes · Licence class: permissive_oss · Multi tenancy: Yes | mediumsource · 2026-08-14 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Rust | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 95% |
Market
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | HqCountry: US · PrimaryMarkets: … · AvailabilityScope: global · AvailableCountries: … · NotAvailableCountries: … | highsource · 2026-08-14 · 75% |
Pricing
Release
Reliability
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Status page | Yes | mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60% |
Security
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Soc2 | Yes | lowsource · 2026-09-10 · 48% |
| Gdpr | Yes | highsource · 2026-08-14 · 75% |
| Scorecard | 5.1 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
| 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 | highsource · 2026-08-26 · 90% |
Is Chroma the right choice for you?
Tell us the job, the constraints and what you weigh most, and we will rank Chroma against the rest of the vector databases we index, using the same dated evidence weighted your way.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Is this your product?
This profile was built from public sources without asking you. You can take the badge below and use it anywhere, and you can claim the profile to correct anything we got wrong. Both are free, and neither moves Chroma up or down: nobody can buy rank here, including you.
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Verify you control the domain and you can correct the facts, add the sources we should be reading, and see how AI assistants are describing Chroma. Free, and it does not change the score.
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