Chroma vs Zilliz Cloud

Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?

The short answer

Zilliz Cloud is the stronger AI pick in Vector Databases: it has a visibility score of 23 versus 18.6 for Chroma, and ranks ahead in 71% of the answers that name both.

Choose Chroma if…

AI answers describe it more positively (50% vs 32% positive)
You need a self-hosted or on-premises option
Fast path from local notebook prototyping to serverless cloud production
Free and open source when self-hosted

Choose Zilliz Cloud if…

You want the brand AI engines rank higher (23 vs 18.6)
You want a lower entry price ($197 vs $250)
You need ISO/IEC 27001 or GDPR ready or HIPAA ready coverage
You prefer a larger, established vendor (51–200 employees)

AI visibility side by side

Latest weekly run · Nov 2

Metric	Chroma	Zilliz Cloud
Visibility score	18.6%	23%
Change vs last week	New	New
Rank in Vector Databases	#6	#5
Share of voice	6.8%	6.3%
Mentions this run	32	30
Positive in AI answers	50%	32%

The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.

Visibility score trend

Weekly runs over the last 60 days

Chroma 0pp · Zilliz Cloud 0pp over 0 weekly runs.

Engine by engine

Zilliz Cloud leads on 3 of 3 engines

ChatGPT

22.2%

28.7%

AI Mode

20.9%

22%

Perplexity

12.6%

18.3%

ChromaZilliz Cloud

Head to head in AI answers

14 engine answers name both brands

4Chroma ranked higher

10Zilliz Cloud ranked higher

Prompt	Engine	Chroma	Zilliz Cloud
What are the best Vector Databases tools in 2026?	AI Mode	#5	#2
Compare the leading Vector Databases platforms	ChatGPT	#6	#4
Compare the leading Vector Databases platforms	AI Mode	#5	#2
Compare the leading Vector Databases platforms	Perplexity	#8	#4
Best vector database with AI features	AI Mode	#5	#3
Which vector database offers a free trial?	AI Mode	#4	#3
Is there a free vector database for small teams?	AI Mode	#1	#5
Is there a free vector database for small teams?	Perplexity	#4	#5
Which Vector Databases tools offer annual discounts?	ChatGPT	#9	#2
Which Vector Databases tools offer annual discounts?	AI Mode	#6	#4
Official website of the top vector database vendors	ChatGPT	#4	#14
Official website of the top vector database vendors	AI Mode	#6	#5

Features, pricing & fit

Dimension	Chroma	Zilliz Cloud
Pricing model	Usage-based	Usage-based
Entry price	Free; paid from $250 / mo	Free; paid from $197 / mo
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Deployment	Open-source self-hosted, serverless managed Chroma Cloud, or Bring Your Own Cloud in the customer's VPC.	Fully managed SaaS, bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) with data in the customer's VPC, and self-run open-source Milvus
Compliance	SOC 2 Type II	SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, GDPR ready, HIPAA ready
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	Community support bot, Email/ticket portal, Slack private channel, Zoom, Google Meet or Teams calls
Founded	2022	2017
Headquarters	San Francisco, CA, United States	Redwood City, California
Employees	11–50	51–200
Funding	Seed · $18M raised	Series B extension · $113M 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.	Teams running production AI applications that need low-latency vector search at scale, and regulated sectors such as healthcare and finance