Turso vs Chroma
Edge SQLite — libSQL at the speed of light
vs. Open-source vector DB designed for AI apps — embeddings-first, dev-friendly
Pricing tiers
Turso
Free
100 DBs, 5 GB storage, 500M row reads/mo, 10M row writes/mo. No credit card.
Free
Developer
Unlimited DBs, 9 GB storage, 2.5B reads, 25M writes.
$5/mo
Scaler
24 GB storage, 100B reads, 100M writes. Teams + DPA support. Price is annual-billed.
$25/mo
Pro
50 GB storage, 250B reads, 250M writes. Teams, DPA, SSO, BYOK, HIPAA, SOC2, priority support. Annual billed.
$417/mo
Enterprise
White-glove support + unlimited usage + dedicated infra.
Custom
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
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Turso vs cloud-free on Chroma.
| Metric | Turso | Chroma |
|---|---|---|
| databases | 100 DBs | — |
| row reads month | 500000000 reads/month | — |
| row writes month | 10000000 writes/month | — |
| storage gb | 5 GB | — |
Features
Turso · 11 features
- Branching — Create DB branches from a primary for staging/test envs.
- BYOK Encryption — Bring your own encryption key (Pro+).
- Edge Routing — Requests route automatically to the nearest replica group.
- Embedded Replicas — Client-side local SQLite file that syncs from the primary — reads are <1ms local…
- libSQL — Turso's open-source SQLite fork with HTTP, WebSocket, and multi-writer support.
- libSQL Server (sqld) — Self-hostable server component. Runs libSQL as a service.
- Multi-Database — Create thousands of DBs cheaply — perfect for per-tenant / per-customer isolatio…
- Point-in-Time Restore — Rollback DB to any moment within backup window.
- Scheduled Backups — Automated point-in-time backups.
- SQLite Compatibility — Drop-in SQLite — same SQL dialect, same file format.
- Teams & RBAC — Org-level access control for Scaler+ tiers.
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.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Turso | Chroma |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Turso CLI | — |
| SDK | go-libsql, @libsql/client, libsql-experimental (Python), libsql-rs, libsql-swift | chromadb (JS/TS), chromadb (Python) |
| REST | libSQL HTTP, Platform API | Chroma HTTP API |
| MCP | Turso MCP | Chroma MCP |
| OTHER | libSQL WebSocket, SQLite wire protocol | Docker Server, Embedded Mode (in-process Python) |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Turso and Chroma 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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