Chroma website screenshot

Chroma

Chroma (Chroma DB) is an open-source AI-native embedding database designed to make it easy to build LLM applications by providing storage, retrieval, and management for vector embeddings, full-text search, regex search, and multi-modal retrieval (text, image, audio). Distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, Chroma can be self-hosted (single-node Python or distributed Rust-based deployment) or consumed via Chroma Cloud, a managed serverless vector database service offering usage-based pricing. Chroma is the open-source data infrastructure for AI agents and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) applications, with first-party SDKs for Python and JavaScript/TypeScript and integrations with leading embedding providers (OpenAI, Cohere, Hugging Face, sentence-transformers).

Chroma publishes 6 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Collections API, Databases API, Records API, and 3 more. Tagged areas include AI, AI Native, Apache 2.0, Cloud, and Embeddings.

The Chroma catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Chroma’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, developer portal, pricing, engineering blog, and 20 more developer resources.

59.7/100 strong ▬ flat Agent 38/100 agent ready Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
AccessPaidSelf serve
8 APIs 10 Features 8 Use Cases
AIAI NativeApache 2.0CloudEmbeddingsHybrid SearchJavaScriptLLMMachine LearningMulti-ModalOpen SourcePythonRAGRetrievalSDKSearchServerlessTypeScriptVector Database

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
Composite quality — 59.7/100 · strong
Contract Quality 17.5 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 7.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 18.4 / 20
Operational Transparency 3.4 / 13
Governance 7.0 / 12
Discoverability 6.5 / 10
Agent readiness — 38/100 · agent ready
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/chroma: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 8

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Chroma Python Client

The Chroma Python Client is a first-party SDK for interacting with both self-hosted Chroma servers and Chroma Cloud. It provides a simple, developer-friendly interface with a co...

Chroma JavaScript Client

The Chroma JavaScript and TypeScript Client is a first-party SDK for interacting with Chroma from JavaScript or TypeScript applications. The v3 rewrite focused on reducing bundl...

Chroma Collections API

Collection management endpoints for creating, listing, retrieving, updating, and deleting collections within a database.

Chroma Databases API

Database management endpoints for creating, listing, retrieving, and deleting databases within a tenant.

Chroma Records API

Record management endpoints for adding, getting, updating, upserting, deleting, and querying records within a collection.

Chroma Search API

Advanced search endpoints available exclusively in Chroma Cloud. Provides a unified interface for hybrid search operations combining vector similarity search with metadata filte...

Chroma System API

System-level endpoints for health checks, version information, and server diagnostics.

Chroma Tenants API

Tenant management endpoints for creating and retrieving tenants.

Scroll for all 8

Postman Collections 6

Ready-to-run Postman collections for exercising this provider's APIs.

Open Collections 2

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Chroma Cloud API

OPEN COLLECTION

Chroma Server API

OPEN COLLECTION

GraphQL 1

GraphQL schemas published by this provider.

Chroma GraphQL API

Chroma is an open-source embedding database for AI. The API covers collection management, document and embedding upsert, querying by embedding or text, metadata filtering, and m...

GRAPHQL

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Chroma Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Chroma Rate Limits

2 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Features 10

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Document and Metadata Storage

Vector Similarity Search (Dense, Sparse, Hybrid)

Full-Text and Regex Search

Metadata Filtering

Multi-Modal Retrieval (Text, Image, Audio)

Automatic Tokenization and Embedding

Collection Management

Embedding Function Plugins

Self-Hosted and Cloud Deployments

Apache 2.0 Open Source License

Scroll for all 10

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Chroma Context

0 classes · 6 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Chroma API Rules

6 rules · 4 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Chroma Collection

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Chroma Record

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Security Posture 4

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Chroma Authentication

apiKey/http · 3 schemes

SECURITY

Chroma Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Chroma Vulnerability Disclosure

disclosure policy published

SECURITY

Chroma Trust Center

SOC 2, ISO 27001

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Chroma Agentic Access

44 operations · 26 acting · 1 human-in-the-loop

44 operations · 26 acting

AGENTIC

Use Cases 8

What developers build with this provider.

RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)

Semantic Search

AI Agent Memory

Code Search (AST-Aware Chunking)

Recommendation Systems

Multi-Modal Search (Text + Images)

Question Answering Systems

Knowledge Base Querying

Scroll for all 8

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Documentation 3

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Agent Surfaces 2

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Build 3

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Access & Security 4

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Company 4

The organization behind the API

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: chroma
name: Chroma
kind: company
description: Chroma (Chroma DB) is an open-source AI-native embedding database designed to make it easy to build LLM applications
  by providing storage, retrieval, and management for vector embeddings, full-text search, regex search, and multi-modal retrieval
  (text, image, audio). Distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, Chroma can be self-hosted (single-node Python or distributed
  Rust-based deployment) or consumed via Chroma Cloud, a managed serverless vector database service offering usage-based pricing.
  Chroma is the open-source data infrastructure for AI agents and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) applications, with
  first-party SDKs for Python and JavaScript/TypeScript and integrations with leading embedding providers (OpenAI, Cohere,
  Hugging Face, sentence-transformers).
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/chroma/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: paid
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Paid · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/chroma.png
tags:
- AI
- AI Native
- Apache 2.0
- Cloud
- Embeddings
- Hybrid Search
- JavaScript
- LLM
- Machine Learning
- Multi-Modal
- Open Source
- Python
- RAG
- Retrieval
- SDK
- Search
- Serverless
- TypeScript
- Vector Database
created: '2025-03-07'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
apis:
- aid: chroma:python-client
  name: Chroma Python Client
  description: The Chroma Python Client is a first-party SDK for interacting with both self-hosted Chroma servers and Chroma
    Cloud. It provides a simple, developer-friendly interface with a core API of just four functions for managing collections,
    adding documents, and querying embeddings. The client handles automatic tokenization, embedding, and indexing of documents,
    making it straightforward to build AI applications that require vector similarity search.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/python/client
  tags:
  - Embeddings
  - Python
  - SDK
  - Vector Database
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/python/client
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma
- aid: chroma:javascript-client
  name: Chroma JavaScript Client
  description: The Chroma JavaScript and TypeScript Client is a first-party SDK for interacting with Chroma from JavaScript
    or TypeScript applications. The v3 rewrite focused on reducing bundle size and improving developer experience, making
    it well-suited for deployment on serverless platforms like Vercel. It supports both self-hosted Chroma instances and Chroma
    Cloud via the CloudClient class, providing collection management, document ingestion, and vector similarity search capabilities.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/js/client
  tags:
  - Embeddings
  - JavaScript
  - SDK
  - TypeScript
  - Vector Database
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/js/client
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma-js
- aid: chroma:chroma-collections-api
  name: Chroma Collections API
  description: Collection management endpoints for creating, listing, retrieving, updating, and deleting collections within
    a database.
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  baseURL: https://api.trychroma.com
  tags:
  - Collections
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/chroma-collections-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  - type: GraphQL
    url: graphql/chroma-graphql.md
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/sync/overview
- aid: chroma:chroma-databases-api
  name: Chroma Databases API
  description: Database management endpoints for creating, listing, retrieving, and deleting databases within a tenant.
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  baseURL: https://api.trychroma.com
  tags:
  - Databases
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/chroma-databases-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  - type: GraphQL
    url: graphql/chroma-graphql.md
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/sync/overview
- aid: chroma:chroma-records-api
  name: Chroma Records API
  description: Record management endpoints for adding, getting, updating, upserting, deleting, and querying records within
    a collection.
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  baseURL: https://api.trychroma.com
  tags:
  - Records
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/chroma-records-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  - type: GraphQL
    url: graphql/chroma-graphql.md
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/sync/overview
- aid: chroma:chroma-search-api
  name: Chroma Search API
  description: Advanced search endpoints available exclusively in Chroma Cloud. Provides a unified interface for hybrid search
    operations combining vector similarity search with metadata filtering and custom ranking expressions.
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  baseURL: https://api.trychroma.com
  tags:
  - Search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/chroma-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  - type: GraphQL
    url: graphql/chroma-graphql.md
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/sync/overview
- aid: chroma:chroma-system-api
  name: Chroma System API
  description: System-level endpoints for health checks, version information, and server diagnostics.
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  baseURL: https://api.trychroma.com
  tags:
  - System
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/chroma-system-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  - type: GraphQL
    url: graphql/chroma-graphql.md
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/sync/overview
- aid: chroma:chroma-tenants-api
  name: Chroma Tenants API
  description: Tenant management endpoints for creating and retrieving tenants.
  humanURL: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  baseURL: https://api.trychroma.com
  tags:
  - Tenants
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/chroma-tenants-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/chroma-reference
  - type: GraphQL
    url: graphql/chroma-graphql.md
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/sync/overview
common:
- type: PostmanWorkspace
  url: https://www.postman.com/kinlaneapi/chroma/overview
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/chroma-agentic-access.yml
- type: TrustCenter
  url: security/chroma-trust-center.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/chroma-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/chroma-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/chroma-authentication.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trychroma
- type: Website
  url: https://www.trychroma.com/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.trychroma.com/docs/overview/introduction
- type: Portal
  url: https://docs.trychroma.com/
- type: Login
  url: https://cloud.trychroma.com/
- type: Pricing
  url: https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/pricing
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.trychroma.com/blog
- type: GitHubOrg
  url: https://github.com/chroma-core
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma
- type: Discord
  url: https://discord.gg/MMeYNTmh3x
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/trychroma
- type: License
  name: Apache License 2.0
  url: https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/blob/main/LICENSE
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.trychroma.com/tos
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.trychroma.com/privacy
- type: JSONLDContext
  url: json-ld/chroma-context.jsonld
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/chroma-collection-schema.json
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/chroma-record-schema.json
- type: Spectral
  url: spectral/chroma-spectral.yml
- name: Features
  type: Features
  data:
  - name: Document and Metadata Storage
  - name: Vector Similarity Search (Dense, Sparse, Hybrid)
  - name: Full-Text and Regex Search
  - name: Metadata Filtering
  - name: Multi-Modal Retrieval (Text, Image, Audio)
  - name: Automatic Tokenization and Embedding
  - name: Collection Management
  - name: Embedding Function Plugins
  - name: Self-Hosted and Cloud Deployments
  - name: Apache 2.0 Open Source License
- name: EmbeddingProviders
  type: EmbeddingProviders
  data:
  - name: OpenAI
  - name: Cohere
  - name: Hugging Face
  - name: sentence-transformers
  - name: Google Vertex AI
  - name: Ollama
- name: UseCases
  type: UseCases
  data:
  - name: RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
  - name: Semantic Search
  - name: AI Agent Memory
  - name: Code Search (AST-Aware Chunking)
  - name: Recommendation Systems
  - name: Multi-Modal Search (Text + Images)
  - name: Question Answering Systems
  - name: Knowledge Base Querying
- name: Standards
  type: Standards
  data:
  - name: OpenAPI Specification
  - name: REST/HTTP
  - name: Apache License 2.0
- type: LlmsText
  url: https://docs.trychroma.com/llms.txt
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com