What Chroma does
Chroma stores documents, embeddings, and metadata through an open-source local database and managed Chroma Cloud.
Chroma pairs a lightweight local developer experience with managed serverless search. Collections support documents, embeddings, metadata, and exportable application patterns.
Cloud Starter has no base fee and includes credits before charges for writes, storage, queries, and network output. Team is $250 monthly plus usage with $100 monthly credit; Enterprise is custom. Embedding costs may be separate.
Weak chunking, duplicates, missing filters, and stale documents can degrade results. Use scoped credentials, tenant separation, spend limits, original source IDs, export and deletion tests, and require users to inspect evidence.
How Chroma works
Developers add text, identifiers, metadata, and supplied or generated embeddings to collections. Chroma indexes the data and returns matching records and distances for semantic, full-text, or filtered queries. Local Chroma runs with an application; Chroma Cloud supplies managed databases. People define the retrieval policy and inspect evidence before using a generated synthesis.
How to set up Chroma
Create a benchmark
Collect representative questions, expected passages, permission cases, and thresholds.
Choose local or cloud
Model writes, storage, queries, egress, support, and security at production scale.
Prepare content
Normalize and deduplicate documents, retain source IDs, and select chunking.
Configure safely
Choose embeddings, filters, scoped keys, tenant boundaries, and spend limits.
Test the application
Measure retrieval, latency, cost, leakage, empty results, and answer grounding.
Chroma FAQs
Is Chroma open source?
Yes. It offers an open-source database and a separate managed cloud service.
Is Chroma Cloud free?
Starter has a $0 base price with credits, then usage charges.
How much is Team?
The current page lists $250 monthly plus usage, with $100 monthly usage credit.
Are embeddings included?
That depends on the selected embedding function or provider; model charges may be separate.
Does Chroma verify answers?
No. It returns candidate records; applications and reviewers verify relevance and synthesis.
Listing reviewed 2026-08-01. Product details and pricing can change; verify important terms on the provider's website.
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