ChromaOpen-source search infrastructure for AI
vs
ValdDistributed, cloud-native approximate nearest-neighbor vector search engine
Comparison · Vector Databases · weekly run Nov 2
Chroma vs Vald
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Chroma is the stronger AI pick in Vector Databases: it has a visibility score of 18.6 versus 0 for Vald.
Choose Chroma if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (18.6 vs 0)
- You need a self-hosted or on-premises option
- You need SOC 2 Type II coverage
- Fast path from local notebook prototyping to serverless cloud production
Choose Vald if…
No clear advantage in the published data.
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 2
| Metric | Chroma | Vald |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 18.6% | 0% |
| Change vs last week | New | New |
| Rank in Vector Databases | #6 | #30 |
| Share of voice | 6.8% | 0% |
| Mentions this run | 32 | 0 |
| Positive in AI answers | 50% | — |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Chroma 0pp · Vald 0pp over 0 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Chroma leads on 3 of 3 engines
ChatGPT
AI Mode
Perplexity
ChromaVald
Head to head in AI answers
0 engine answers name both brands
0Chroma ranked higher
0Vald ranked higher
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Chroma | Vald |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | — |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $250 / mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Deployment | Open-source self-hosted, serverless managed Chroma Cloud, or Bring Your Own Cloud in the customer's VPC. | Runs on Kubernetes 1.19 or later and is installed via Helm charts; requires AVX2 instructions for the NGT agent. |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II | — |
| Support | Community support through Discord and the open-source community on the Starter plan, Slack support on the Team plan, Dedicated support and customized SLAs on the Enterprise plan | — |
| Founded | 2022 | — |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, United States | — |
| Employees | 11–50 | — |
| Funding | Seed · $18M raised | — |
| Best for | Developers building retrieval-augmented generation prototypes, who get a fast start locally, and teams that later need a managed or self-hosted search system. | — |
Plans side by side
Vald
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Chroma
- Fast path from local notebook prototyping to serverless cloud production
- Free and open source when self-hosted
- Lightweight and developer-friendly for prototypes
- Best for local development, prototyping and MVPs
- Good for small-to-medium RAG and semantic search applications
- Not suited to high-scale production workloads
Vald
Profile in progress.
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 100%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Chroma vs Vald”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/chroma-vs-vald, data of Nov 2, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.