Pick Chroma if
app teams who will run chromadb locally or pay Cloud usage after the Starter credits, and already have an embedding model.
Read the Chroma pageChroma vs turbopuffer
Our take
Pick Chroma if app teams who will run chromadb locally or pay Cloud usage after the Starter credits, and already have an embedding model. Pick turbopuffer if search / RAG teams who will pay the Launch minimum of $16/month and grow on logical GB, not a per-seat vector UI.
Best for
Chroma A retrieval index you own
turbopuffer Cheap, huge search you meter in storage / write / query bytes
Free plan
Chroma $0 · pip install chromadb
turbopuffer No free plan
Lowest paid
Chroma Team (Cloud) $250/mo
turbopuffer Usage (all plans) $0.33
Next step up
Chroma
turbopuffer Public calculator example (1,024 $0.88
Runs where
Chroma Local or hosted
turbopuffer Hosted
Watch out
Chroma You bring the embedding bill
turbopuffer There is no free hobby cluster
Last checked
Chroma 2026-10-22 · trychroma.com/pricing
turbopuffer 2026-10-22 · turbopuffer.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick turbopuffer if
search / RAG teams who will pay the Launch minimum of $16/month and grow on logical GB, not a per-seat vector UI.
Read the turbopuffer page