Running Chroma in Client-Server Mode

Chroma can also be configured to run in client/server mode. In this mode, the Chroma client connects to a Chroma server running in a separate process.

This means that you can deploy single-node Chroma to a Docker container, or a machine hosted by a cloud provider like AWS, GCP, Azure, and others. Then, you can access your Chroma server from your application using our HttpClient.

You can quickly experiment locally with Chroma in client/server mode by using our CLI:

chroma run --path /db_path

Then use the Chroma HttpClient to connect to the server:

import chromadb
chroma_client = chromadb.HttpClient(host='localhost', port=8000)

Chroma also provides an AsyncHttpClient. The behaviors and method signatures are identical to the synchronous client, but all methods that would block are now async:

import asyncio
import chromadb

async def main():
    client = await chromadb.AsyncHttpClient()
    collection = await client.create_collection(name="my_collection")
    await collection.add(
        documents=["hello world"],
        ids=["id1"]
    )

asyncio.run(main())

If you intend to deploy your Chroma server, you may want to consider our thin-client package for client-side interactions.