Chroma vs Pinecone
Chroma
trychroma.com
Pinecone
pinecone.ioSide by side
| Figure | Chroma | Pinecone |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $250/mo | $20/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 4 | 5 |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 9.4 (#1) | 8.9 (#3) |
| Spec score · Vector Databases | 9.4 (#1) | 8.9 (#2) |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 9.3 (#2) | 8.8 (#4) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.7 (#20) | 8.5 (#30) |
| CLI installation | The CLI is installable through the Python package, JavaScript package, pipx or a standalone curl installer. | The Pinecone CLI can be installed on macOS or Linux with an install script or Homebrew cask. |
| Company legal name | The terms identify the service provider as Chroma Inc. | The registered company name is Pinecone Systems, Inc. |
| Compliance | Chroma Cloud says it completed a SOC 2 Type II examination. | Pinecone states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant with a BAA available on request, and GDPR-ready. |
| Documentation depth | The docs cover quickstarts, SDK references, cloud clients, deployment, Docker, production client-server mode, performance and migrations. | Documentation includes conceptual guides, API references, SDK references, production checklists, import guidance and release notes. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Licence | Chroma is released under the Apache 2.0 licence. | The database platform is proprietary closed-source hosted software rather than an open-source product. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.2 out of 5 from 6 reviews. | 4.4 out of 5 from 78 reviews. |
| SDKs | Official documentation provides Python, TypeScript and Rust client examples and references. | Official SDKs include Python, TypeScript/Node.js, Java, Go and .NET clients. |
| Search | Chroma supports dense, sparse, and hybrid vector search, full-text and regex search, and metadata filtering. | The database supports dense, sparse, and full-text indexes, metadata filters, and namespaces. |
| 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. | Pinecone states that it encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES-256 and supports API key roles and RBAC. |
| 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. | Official security materials state AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2 in transit, RBAC, API-key roles, audit logs, private endpoints and customer-managed keys. |
| Paid from | 250 | 20 |
| Support | The pricing page lists Community Slack for Starter, Slack support for Team, and dedicated support for Enterprise. | The Starter plan includes community support via Discord; paid plans include free support, and Enterprise includes Pro support. |
| Vector search | The product supports semantic similarity search over dense vector embeddings. | The service stores dense and sparse vectors and performs approximate nearest-neighbor similarity search. |
Plans
Pinecone
- Builder$20 a month
- Standard$50 a month
- Enterprise$500 a month
- StarterFree
- Bring your own cloud (BYOC)Priced on request
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.
Pinecone
Pinecone is a fully managed vector database for AI workloads, available through web and API access. Its stated uses include semantic search, recommendations and retrieval-augmented generation. It supports dense, sparse and full-text indexes, metadata filters and namespaces; the maker says automatic indexing makes new writes searchable within seconds. Listed integrations include LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI, Cohere, Databricks, Snowflake and Airbyte. The free Starter plan has limits including one project, two users, five indexes and 100 namespaces per index. Builder costs $20 a month. Standard is $50 a month minimum applied to usage, with usage above that minimum charged pay-as-you-go; Enterprise is $500 a month minimum on the same basis. Pinecone says it encrypts data at rest and in transit and supports API-key roles and RBAC. It lists SOC 2 Type II certification, HIPAA compliance with a BAA available on request, GDPR readiness and a 99.95% uptime SLA. Its TypeScript SDK is intended for server-side use because browser use can expose API keys.