Staxly

Chroma vs Qdrant: pricing, quotas & features (2026)

Open-source vector DB designed for AI apps — embeddings-first, dev-friendly
vs. Rust-based vector DB — high performance, OSS, managed cloud

Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated June 2026

Chroma website ↗Qdrant website ↗

Summary

Chroma and Qdrant are both search platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. Qdrant has a broader documented feature set (13 vs 11 features). The right choice depends on your existing stack, team experience, and feature requirements. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Chroma and Qdrant's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.

Chroma vs Qdrant: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2026)

En esta comparativa analizamos Chroma y Qdrant lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.

Chroma es una plataforma de la categoría search — Open-source vector DB designed for AI apps — embeddings-first, dev-friendly. Ofrece 4 tiers de precio: Cloud — Free gratuito, Cloud — Pro gratuito, Self-Host (OSS) gratuito, Cloud — Enterprise (personalizado). Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 11 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.

Qdrant pertenece a la categoría search — Rust-based vector DB — high performance, OSS, managed cloud. Ofrece 6 tiers de precio: Free Forever gratuito, Standard gratuito, Self-Host (OSS) gratuito, Hybrid Cloud (BYOC) (personalizado). Su catálogo documenta 13 características y 9 interfazes para desarrolladores.

A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.

¿Necesitas estos datos en tu agente de IA (Claude Code, Cursor, Zed)? Instala gratis el servidor MCP de Staxly y tendrás acceso estructurado a Chroma, Qdrant y más de 130 plataformas para desarrolladores.

Pricing tiers

Chroma

Cloud — Free
$5 free credits. Great for trying it out.
Free
Cloud — Pro
$100 credits included, then usage-based. Dedicated resources, SOC2, priority support.
$0 base (usage-based)
Self-Host (OSS)
MIT-licensed. Embedded or Docker. Free forever.
$0 base (usage-based)
Cloud — Enterprise
Custom. VPC, compliance, dedicated support.
Custom
Chroma website ↗

Qdrant

Free Forever
Single-node 0.5 vCPU / 1 GB RAM / 4 GB disk. Free cloud inference models.
Free
Standard
Usage-based. Dedicated resources, flexible scaling. 99.5% SLA. Backups + DR. Free inference tokens.
$0 base (usage-based)
Self-Host (OSS)
Apache 2.0 licensed. Run for free.
$0 base (usage-based)
Hybrid Cloud (BYOC)
Run managed cluster on your infra. Data stays in your network.
Custom
Premium
Min spend required. SSO + private VPC links. 99.9% SLA. 24x7 enterprise support.
Custom
Private Cloud
Dedicated + isolated. Custom SLA. Large enterprise.
Custom
Qdrant website ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing cloud-free on Chroma vs free on Qdrant.

MetricChromaQdrant
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Chroma · 11 features

  • Client-Server Mode — Run Chroma via Docker; clients connect over HTTP.
  • Collections — Named groups of embeddings + metadata.
  • Distributed (Cloud) — Horizontal scaling on Chroma Cloud.
  • Embedded Mode — In-process Python — chromadb.Client() and go. Zero setup.
  • Embedding Functions — Plug-in embedders (OpenAI, Cohere, SentenceTransformers, HF).
  • Full-Text Search — BM25 + vector hybrid.
  • Metadata Filters — Where-clause query language.
  • Migration Tools — Import from Pinecone + other stores.
  • Multi-Modal — Text + image embeddings (CLIP, etc.).
  • Python + JS APIs — Same API shape across both SDKs.
  • Serverless Cloud — Pay for storage + queries, auto-scale.

Qdrant · 13 features

  • BYOC (Hybrid Cloud) — Managed Qdrant in your cloud account.
  • Cloud Inference — Hosted embedding models for free tokens.
  • Cluster Monitoring — Prometheus metrics + health.
  • Collections — Typed collections with named vectors + payload schema.
  • Distributed — Horizontal sharding + Raft replication.
  • Hybrid Search — Sparse + dense + keyword in one query.
  • Multi-Vector — Multiple vectors per point (text + image, etc.).
  • Open Source — Apache 2.0 licensed.
  • Payload Filters — Rich filter DSL with indexed fields.
  • Quantization — Scalar + product + binary for memory reduction.
  • RBAC — API-key scopes + roles.
  • Snapshots + Restore — Backup + DR primitives.
  • Sparse Vectors — BM25 + SPLADE sparse embeddings natively.

Developer interfaces

KindChromaQdrant
SDKchromadb (JS/TS), chromadb (Python)@qdrant/js-client-rest, go-client, java-client, qdrant-client (py), qdrant-client (rust), qdrant-dotnet
RESTChroma HTTP APIQdrant REST API
MCPChroma MCPQdrant MCP
OTHERDocker Server, Embedded Mode (in-process Python)Qdrant gRPC

Key takeaways

  • Both Chroma and Qdrant offer a free tier — Chroma ("Cloud — Free") and Qdrant ("Free Forever") — with no credit card required to start.
  • Qdrant has a broader documented feature set (13 features) vs. Chroma (11 features) in Staxly's catalog.
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Chroma and Qdrant may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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