Chroma vs SingleStore: Vector Databases Comparison
Compare Chroma and SingleStore side by side. Both are tools in the Vector Databases category.
Updated March 1, 2026
The short answer
Choose Chroma if extremely simple to set up and beginner-friendly.
Choose SingleStore if unified platform combining transactional, analytical, and vector workloads.
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Quick Comparison
| Category | Vector Databases | Vector Databases |
| Pricing | Open Source | — |
| Best For | Python developers who want a simple, embedded vector database for prototyping | — |
| Website | trychroma.com | singlestore.com |
| Key Features |
| — |
| Use Cases |
| — |
Pros & Cons: Chroma vs SingleStore
- +Extremely simple to set up and beginner-friendly
- +Apache 2.0 open source with free self-hosting
- +Default vector store in LangChain and LlamaIndex frameworks
- +Cloud reads are effectively free ($0.0075/TiB)
- +SOC 2 Type II compliance for enterprise deployments
- −Single-node architecture limits scalability for self-hosted deployments
- −Performance may not match Pinecone at very large scale
- −Limited advanced documentation for complex use cases
- −Enterprise features like SSO are less mature than competitors
- +Unified platform combining transactional, analytical, and vector workloads
- +Co-located vector data with relational data for powerful SQL queries
- +Multiple vector index types (FLAT, IVF_FLAT, IVF_PQ, HNSW_FLAT, HNSW_PQ)
- +MySQL and MongoDB wire protocol compatibility for easy integration
- +Proven at scale with 100+ Fortune 500 customers
- −More complex than dedicated vector databases for pure vector search use cases
- −Pricing not transparently published
- −May have higher learning curve for teams unfamiliar with distributed SQL
- −Recent acquisition may lead to product changes
Pricing: Chroma vs SingleStore
- · Apache 2.0 license
- · Local deployment
- · Docker support
- · Single-node architecture
- · Usage-based pricing
- · $0.33/GB/month storage
- · $2.50/GB data ingestion
- · Near-free reads ($0.0075/TiB)
- · Higher limits
- · Priority support
- · Volume-based discounts
- · SOC 2 Type II
- · BYOC in your VPC
- · Custom SLAs
- · 24/7 support
When to Choose Chroma vs SingleStore
- Local development and prototyping
- Small to medium RAG applications
- Embedded vector search in Python apps
How to Choose a Vector Databases Tool
Key criteria to evaluate when comparing Vector Databases solutions:
About Chroma
Chroma is an open-source embedding database designed for simplicity and developer experience, licensed under Apache 2.0. It provides a lightweight, easy-to-use API for storing, querying, and filtering embeddings locally or in the cloud.
Chroma is the default vector store in many LLM frameworks like LangChain and LlamaIndex, making it extremely popular for prototyping and building RAG applications quickly. The managed Chroma Cloud service offers serverless deployment with usage-based pricing, while the self-hosted version runs on a single node at no cost.
The company achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance for enterprise deployments and offers Chroma Cloud with features including BYOC in your VPC, multi-cloud/multi-region replication, and point-in-time recovery. Chroma is rated 4.2/5 on G2.
About SingleStore
SingleStore is a real-time, unified, distributed SQL database that combines transactional, analytical, and vector data workloads in a single platform. MySQL and MongoDB wire protocol-compatible, SingleStore enables organizations to scale from one to one million customers, handling SQL, JSON, full text, and vector workloads all in one unified platform. Unlike traditional vector databases, SingleStore stores vector data in relational tables alongside other types of data, allowing easy querying of extended metadata and other attributes with the full power of SQL. The system supports both semantic search using FLAT, IVF_FLAT, IVF_PQ, IVF_PQFS, HNSW_FLAT, and HNSW_PQ vector indexes, with dot product and Euclidean distance for similarity matching. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Francisco, SingleStore serves hundreds of customers including 100+ Fortune 500, Forbes Global 2000, and Inc. 5000 brands. The company was acquired by Vector Capital in September 2025.
What is Vector Databases?
Purpose-built databases for storing, indexing, and querying high-dimensional vector embeddings used in semantic search, RAG, and recommendation systems.
Browse all Vector Databasestools →Frequently Asked Questions
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