Chroma vs Weaviate
Compare deployment options, cost efficiency, and features to choose the right vector database for your application.
Database Comparison
Chroma takes the lead.
Both Chroma and Weaviate are powerful vector databases designed for efficient similarity search and storage. However, their deployment options and features differ in important ways.
Why Chroma:
- Chroma ranks higher overall
- Chroma offers more deployment options
- Chroma is more cost-effective
- Chroma has more permissive licensing
- Chroma has 2 more strengths
Chroma
Chroma is a lightweight, local-first vector database designed for fast prototyping and flexible on-device or self-hosted RAG workflows. It supports efficient in-memory and SPANN search modes, making it ideal for local experimentation and small to medium RAG systems.
Weaviate
Weaviate is a cloud and self-hosted vector database offering hybrid dense+sparse search, strong metadata filtering, and a modular storage layer. It is designed for enterprise and production RAG workloads that require flexibility and scalable cloud hosting.
Feature Comparison
Infrastructure & Technical Details
| Feature | Chroma | Weaviate |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud |
| Cost | Free (local), Chroma Cloud starts at $0 with $5 free credits | Free (self-host), cloud starts ~$25/mo |
| License | Apache 2.0 | BSD |
| Index Types | HNSW, SPANN | HNSW, Hybrid dense+sparse |
| Cloud Providers | Any | AWS, GCP |
| Regional Flexibility | medium | low |
| Strengths Count | 10 | 8 |
| Weaknesses Count | 7 | 6 |