# Chroma

Source: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/product/chroma/

## Indicative from-price range

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting Chroma on 1 server: about $24 to $112 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Vector count (millions): 1; Embedding dimension: 768; Peak query concurrency: 10; Daily ingest (GB): 0.5). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $24 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $49 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $63 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $64 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $66 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $66 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $262 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west).

Reference workload:
- Vector count (millions): 1
- Embedding dimension: 768
- Peak query concurrency: 10
- Daily ingest (GB): 0.5

Price snapshot: 2026-10-19. Currency: USD. FX snapshot: 2026-10-19.

Configuration: Low end: 1 x basic-2vcpu-4gb (DigitalOcean, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, about $24 per server per month). High end: 1 x rise-m (OVHcloud, 12 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, about $112 per server per month).

Methodology: This range is generated automatically from public provider price lists. It has not been reviewed by a person, it is not a quote, and it may differ from the total the calculator chooses for your own workload with its AI step. Method: the calculator's offer shortlist for the reference workload (the same ranking it builds before the AI step, up to 12 offers across providers; 12 here) is priced at its monthly list price in USD. The low end is the cheapest of the per-provider from-prices below and the high end is the median server of the combined shortlist, each multiplied by 1, the smallest baseline topology (local-or-embedded). The from-price for each provider applies the same method to that provider's own shortlist (the calculator's ranking restricted to that provider), so it is the cheapest server that ranking offers there, not a recommendation. Prices are taken from the price snapshot dated 2026-10-19; prices quoted in EUR are converted with the ECB reference rate dated 2026-10-19. Servers with fewer than 2 vCPU or less than 4 GB RAM are not priced. Only server rental list prices for the product's own servers are counted: dependencies, licences, support, traffic charges, taxes and setup fees are not included.

Price sources:
- [Amazon Web Services](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonEC2/current/us-east-1/index.json)
- [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- [Google Cloud](https://cloudbilling.googleapis.com/v1/services/6F81-5844-456A/skus)
- [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/_resources/app/data/app/live_data_en_EUR.json)
- [Microsoft Azure](https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices)
- [OVHcloud](https://eu.api.ovh.com/1.0/order/catalog/public/eco?ovhSubsidiary=FR)
- [Servers.com](https://www.servers.com/products/scalable-bare-metal)

Chroma is an open-source embedding database built for retrieval-augmented generation, storing vector embeddings alongside metadata and documents so applications can run similarity search and filtering over them. It offers both an embedded in-process mode and a client-server deployment.

## Baseline topologies

- local-or-embedded: 1 node minimum; roles: chroma
- shared-retrieval-server: 1 node minimum; roles: chroma

## What drives the cost

- Vector count (millions): Approximate number of stored vectors before growth overhead.
- Embedding dimension: Dimension of the embeddings stored in the primary collections.
- Peak query concurrency: Expected peak concurrent retrieval requests against the Chroma deployment.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does it cost to self-host Chroma?

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting Chroma on 1 server: about $24 to $112 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Vector count (millions): 1; Embedding dimension: 768; Peak query concurrency: 10; Daily ingest (GB): 0.5). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $24 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $49 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $63 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $64 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $66 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $66 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $262 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west). This is an automatically generated indicative figure from public price lists (price snapshot 2026-10-19), not a quote.

### What drives the cost of self-hosting Chroma?

The sizing inputs the calculator uses for Chroma are: Vector count (millions); Embedding dimension; Peak query concurrency. Cost also depends on the number of servers and the provider chosen.

### What is the minimum number of servers for Chroma?

The smallest baseline topology in the calculator's profile for Chroma is local-or-embedded (1 server). Other baseline topologies: shared-retrieval-server (1 server minimum). The reference range above is computed for 1 server.

Size Chroma for your own workload: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/?product=chroma

## Sources

- https://www.trychroma.com/
- https://docs.trychroma.com/
- https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma