# AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs Pirate Weather

> Pirate Weather has a score of 66.2 (B) against AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP's 48.8 (D). Both do weather current. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 67 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

Pirate Weather has a score of 66.2 (B) against AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP's 48.8 (D). Both do weather current. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 67 points.

- AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP: grade D, 48.8/100, rank #372 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/accuweather-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/accuweather-api.json
- Pirate Weather: grade B, 66.2/100, rank #162 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pirate-weather.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pirate-weather.json

## Which one, for what

Pick AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Pirate Weather for reliability (+10), schema & documentation (+25), agent ergonomics (+17), security & auth (+6), payments & pricing (+5), maintenance & community (+67), transparency & trust (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP | Pirate Weather | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 75 | Pirate Weather +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 85 | Pirate Weather +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 77 | Pirate Weather +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 39 | 45 | Pirate Weather +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 30 | Pirate Weather +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 13 | 80 | Pirate Weather +67 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 71 | Pirate Weather +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **48.8 · D** | **66.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP | Pirate Weather |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | AccuWeather | Pirate Weather |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://dataservice.accuweather.com` | `https://api.pirateweather.net/forecast` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Apache-2.0 (docs and spec), AGPL-3.0 (API code) |
| Tools exposed | 26 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-23 |
| Popularity | none | 907 stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP.** Official hosted MCP server, 26 read-only tools, same key as the REST API. Terms forbid using the data to train, validate or otherwise inform any AI system.

**Pirate Weather.** Named model sources and a documented priority order for every field. No SLA, and the terms call it best effort.

## Before you call either

### AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP

1. Cache location keys. They don't change, and the lookup is the call worth saving
2. Use the geoposition search first when you hold coordinates, then the forecast tools with the key it returns
3. Send the key as a Bearer header, not in the MCP URL, so it stays out of logs
4. Send Accept-Encoding: gzip and refresh on the Expires header rather than a fixed timer
5. Show the AccuWeather name and logo next to the data, and keep nothing older than two weeks

### Pirate Weather

1. Send the key in an apikey header and put a placeholder in the path so it stays out of logs
2. Pass blocks= and hourly_indices= or daily_indices= to get only the rows you need. The default payload is large
3. Ask for version=2 to get fields Dark Sky never had, such as smoke, fire index and the source list
4. Point historical requests at timemachine.pirateweather.net with a UNIX timestamp after the coordinate
5. Watch Ratelimit-Remaining. The cap is monthly, so a runaway loop can spend it in a day

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