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Vector databases · October 2026 Edition

Chroma vs Weaviate

Zero of fourteen models named Chroma first on the direct prompt; two named Weaviate. Both were named by all fourteen models and Chroma carries 36 labels and Weaviate 67, so the shares are not directly comparable.

Chroma

criticized challenger

Named in one category this edition.

Weaviate

accepted challenger

Named in one category this edition.

First-choice share6%5%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.

Negative rate31%10%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.

Rank in category#4#5A position in a field of 10; printed, not drawn.

Labels3667A count; the two differ.

The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Chroma reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Pinecone was named alongside these two in eleven of the fourteen direct answers. pgvector vs Chroma · pgvector vs Weaviate · Pinecone vs Chroma

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the vector databases page.

By framing

How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.

ChromaFirst choices, of fourteen modelsWeaviate

Direct02

Paraphrase011 against Chroma

Comparative013 against Chroma

Budget-constrained402 against Weaviate

Scale-constrained001 against Weaviate

Negative007 against Chroma · 4 against Weaviate

Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.

Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Chroma and Weaviate were named in the same answer eighty-five times, of the 101 answers naming Chroma and the 203 naming Weaviate. In those answers Weaviate took the first choice three times and Chroma nine.

Every model, every framing

The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Chroma and Weaviate stood in it.

Model	Direct	Paraphrase	Comparative	Budget-constrained	Scale-constrained	Negative
Claude Haiku 4.5
GPT-5.4 mini
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Perplexity Sonar
Grok 4.1 Fast
Mistral Small
DeepSeek V4 Flash
Llama 4 Maverick
Qwen 3.7 Flash
Kimi K2
GLM 4.7 FlashX
MiniMax M2.5
GPT-6 Luna
Muse Glimmer 30B

Chroma

Weaviate

first choice

named as an alternative

argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Chroma on the left and Weaviate on the right.

The direct prompt

The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Chroma and Weaviate stood in it.

Weaviate first, Chroma not the choice

2 of 14 modelsChroma was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.

Claude Haiku 4.5Pinecone, Weaviate

GLM 4.7 FlashXQdrant, Weaviate alternatives: pgvector

Neither was the first choice, one was named

9 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.

GPT-5.4 miniPinecone alternatives: Qdrant, Weaviate

Gemini 3.5 Flashpgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate

Perplexity SonarQdrant, pgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Weaviate

Grok 4.1 Fastpgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate

DeepSeek V4 FlashQdrant, pgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Weaviate

Qwen 3.7 FlashPinecone alternatives: MongoDB Atlas Vector Search, Weaviate

Kimi K2pgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate

MiniMax M2.5Pinecone alternatives: Elasticsearch, Milvus, Weaviate

Muse Glimmer 30BPinecone, pgvector alternatives: Qdrant, Weaviate

Neither was named

3 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.

Mistral Smallpgvector alternatives: pgvectorscale

Llama 4 Maverickpgvector

GPT-6 LunaQdrant alternatives: Pinecone, pgvector

Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.

Small business

Level: the same share of first choices.

Chroma#5 of 7

Weaviate#4 of 7

The full small business standing →

Mid-marketThe figures above

Chroma leads by two points.

Chroma#4 of 10

Weaviate#5 of 10

The full mid-market standing →

Enterprise

The order flips: Weaviate leads at enterprise.

Weaviate#4 of 10

Chroma#10 of 10

The full enterprise standing →

What the models said about Chroma

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.

“Chroma has experienced significant production issues, including a critical memory leak... A severe cache invalidation bug in version 0.5 caused p99 latency to spike from 42ms to 542ms” MiniMax M2.5 · negative prompt · hard negative

“Only use Chroma behind a private network with auth enabled and patched, never internet exposed with defaults.” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · hard negative

“Avoid Chroma for production — it's a prototype tool, not a production database” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · hard negative

“Start with Chroma or Qdrant (self‑hosted) or pgvector if you already have PostgreSQL.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · budget prompt · first choice

“Best for small budgets: Chroma (free, self-hosted) or pgvector (free, if using PostgreSQL).” Mistral Small · budget prompt · first choice

“Chroma: Offers a free plan and is considered one of the cheapest options.” Llama 4 Maverick · budget prompt · first choice

What the models said about Weaviate

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.

“Weaviate's own security checklist says self-managed deployments allow anonymous queries by default unless you configure auth. That's fine for local dev, but risky for production.” GPT-5.4 mini · negative prompt · soft negative

“Weaviate Cloud if your costs need to be especially simple and predictable: Pricing can depend on vector dimensions...” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · soft negative

“*Proprietary (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate Cloud):* Easier to start, harder to leave later (vendor lock-in).” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · soft negative

“I'd recommend either Pinecone ... or Weaviate (if you want flexibility and cost control)” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice

“I'd suggest beginning with Weaviate or pgvector if you're already invested in PostgreSQL” Claude Haiku 4.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“Weaviate (open‑source + managed cloud, built‑in multimodal & GraphQL APIs)” GLM 4.7 FlashX · direct prompt · first choice

Also compared

pgvector vs Chroma pgvector vs Weaviate Pinecone vs Chroma Pinecone vs Weaviate Qdrant vs Chroma Qdrant vs Weaviate Chroma vs Milvus Chroma vs MongoDB Atlas Vector Search Weaviate vs Milvus Weaviate vs MongoDB Atlas Vector Search All twenty-one head-to-head pages and the full vector databases standing

Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.