head to head · open source
orm vs Chroma
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars, 2,605 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Chroma has 29,627 stars, 2,604 forks, 843 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. orm leads on adoption by 61% (47,661 vs 29,627 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; Chroma is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. orm has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Chroma 9%. orm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| orm | Chroma | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 30K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick orm if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Chroma if
- You want the Chroma feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Chroma fits your workflow better
About orm
Docs Discord X Blog Post Architecture Using Prisma 7? It remains fully supported. Its source lives on the v7 branch of this repository and its docs at prisma.io/docs/orm/v7. Prisma 8 is a release candidate. 8.0.0 final is expected in the next four to eight weeks. Until then a release candidate may include breaking changes, and every release ships with an upgrade recipe that the prisma 8 skill applies for you. The candidate is a complete implementation we stand behind: we treat bugs in it as urgent, and the risk you take on is a feature that is not built yet rather than churn. The feature scoreboard names every…
About Chroma
Chroma the open source data infrastructure for AI . Docs Homepage Chroma Cloud Our hosted service, Chroma Cloud, powers serverless vector, hybrid, and full text search. It's extremely fast, cost effective, scalable and painless. Create a DB and try it out in under 30 seconds with $5 of free credits. Get started with Chroma Cloud API The core API is only 4 functions (run our 💡 Google Colab): Learn about all features on our Docs Get involved Chroma is a rapidly developing project. We welcome PR contributors and ideas for how to improve the project. Join the conversation on Discord contributing channel Review the…
read the full Chroma overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is orm or Chroma more popular?
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars and Chroma has 29,627. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and Chroma free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Chroma under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and Chroma?
orm is written in TypeScript and Chroma in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, orm or Chroma?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,661 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Chroma if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.