Chroma vs ClickHouse Cloud
Chroma
trychroma.com
ClickHouse Cloud
clickhouse.comSide by side
| Figure | Chroma | ClickHouse Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $250/mo | $25.30/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 3 |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 9.4 (#1) | 9.2 (#2) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.7 (#19) | 9.0 (#8) |
| Cloud API | The CloudClient accepts a tenant, database and API key, with environment-variable configuration also supported. | The Cloud API provides programmatic service lifecycle, user administration, backup and monitoring operations. |
| Compliance | Chroma Cloud says it completed a SOC 2 Type II examination. | The Trust Center lists CCPA, EU-US Data Privacy Framework, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS and SOC 2 Type 2. |
| Documentation depth | The docs cover quickstarts, SDK references, cloud clients, deployment, Docker, production client-server mode, performance and migrations. | Cloud production documentation covers API integration, automated scaling, backup validation and monitoring integration patterns. |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Funding news | Chroma announced an $18 million seed round led by Quiet Capital on April 7, 2023, and also disclosed a May 2022 pre-seed round. | ClickHouse says it announced a $400 million Series D financing in 2026 and acquired Langfuse. |
| Licence | Chroma is released under the Apache 2.0 licence. | The open-source ClickHouse database is released under the Apache License 2.0. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.2 out of 5 from 6 reviews. | 4.5 out of 5 from 23 reviews |
| Security | Chroma Cloud says customer data is encrypted in transit and at rest and that access controls include SSO, role-based access control, and employee MFA. | The Cloud page lists access controls, encryption in transit and at rest, activity logging, and SOC 2 Type II compliance. |
| Security controls | The security page states that customer data is encrypted in transit and at rest, employee production access requires MFA, and AWS GuardDuty and Inspector are used for threat detection. | Officially listed controls include access controls, encryption in transit and at rest, activity logging and SOC 2 Type II compliance. |
| Self-hosting | A Chroma server can run locally or in Docker and can be deployed on AWS, GCP, Azure and other cloud providers. | ClickHouse can be run outside the cloud, with official distribution options for Windows, Docker, Linux and macOS. |
| Paid from | 250 | 50 |
| Support | The pricing page lists Community Slack for Starter, Slack support for Team, and dedicated support for Enterprise. | Cloud subscriptions include support services; the support page lists unlimited support cases and 24x7 support for Severity 1 issues for monthly pay-as-you-go or annual customers. |
| What it does | ChromaDB is open-source search infrastructure for AI applications, combining vector, full-text, regex, and metadata search. | ClickHouse Cloud is a fully managed service for real-time analytics, observability and AI data applications. |
Plans
ClickHouse Cloud
- Basic$25.30 a month
- Enterprise$25.30 a month
- Scale$25.30 a month
In their own words
Chroma
Chroma is open-source infrastructure for storing embeddings and metadata, then searching and retrieving information across text, images, and other modalities. Search options include dense, sparse, and hybrid vector search, plus full-text and regex search and metadata filtering. It can run locally through pip, npm, or Docker, on Chroma Cloud, or in a customer’s own VPC. The maker says its Apache 2.0-licensed codebase powers both the open-source database and Chroma Cloud. Documented integrations include embedding providers such as OpenAI, Cohere, Google Gemini, Hugging Face, Jina AI, and Ollama, and frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, Streamlit, and DeepEval. Cloud security features include encryption in transit and at rest, SSO, role-based access control, and employee MFA; Chroma Cloud has completed a SOC 2 Type II examination. Starter is free, with 10 databases and 10 team members. Team is $250 a month plus usage and includes $100 credits, 100 databases, and 30 team members.
ClickHouse Cloud
ClickHouse Cloud has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.