# Chroma

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/chroma/  
**Website:** https://www.trychroma.com/  
**APIs profiled:** 8

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).

## Kin Score — 47.2 / 100 (developing)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 47.2).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 72.2 |
| Contract Quality | 66.2 |
| Governance | 9.8 |
| Contract Governance | 9.8 |
| Operational Transparency | 26.3 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 42.9 |
| Commercial Clarity | 51.3 |
| Access Clarity | 51.3 |

## Agent readiness — 35.9 (agent-ready)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | yes |
| Agentic Access | derived |
| Reversibility Documented | no |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | yes |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | verified |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | documented |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |

## Access

Paid · Self-serve signup — onboarding: self-serve, pricing: paid, trial: no (confidence: high).

## APIs (8)

- **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.

## Agentic access (1)

- **Chroma Agentic Access** — 44 operations · 26 acting · 1 human-in-the-loop

## Security (4)

- **Chroma Authentication** — apiKey/http · 3 schemes
- **Chroma Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC
- **Chroma Vulnerability Disclosure** — disclosure policy published
- **Chroma Trust Center** — SOC 2, ISO 27001

## Plans (1)

- **Chroma Plans Pricing**

## Use cases (8)

- **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**

## Tags

Artificial Intelligence, 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

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/chroma/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.