Running Chroma in Client-Server Mode

no

Original Documentation

Documentation Index#

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trychroma.com/llms.txt Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

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:

```python
    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:

```python
    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](./python-thin-client) for client-side interactions.
  <span class="tab-end"></span>

  <span class="tab-start" data-tab-title="TypeScript"></span>
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](./docker), or a machine hosted by a cloud provider like [AWS](./aws), [GCP](./gcp), [Azure](./azure), and others. Then, you can access your Chroma server from your application using our `ChromaClient`.

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

```terminal
    chroma run --path /db_path
    ```

Then connect to the Chroma server from your program:

```typescript
    import { ChromaClient } from "chromadb";

    const client = new ChromaClient();
    ```
  <span class="tab-end"></span>

  <span class="tab-start" data-tab-title="Rust"></span>
Chroma can also be configured to run in client/server mode. In this mode, the Rust client connects to a Chroma server running in a separate process.

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

```terminal
    chroma run --path /db_path
    ```

Then connect to the Chroma server from your program:

```rust
    use chroma::ChromaHttpClient;

    let client = ChromaHttpClient::new(Default::default());
    ```
  <span class="tab-end"></span>
<span class="tab-group-end"></span>
Link last verified June 7, 2026. View original ↗
Source: Chroma Docs
Link last verified: 2026-03-04