# AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs WeatherAPI.com

> WeatherAPI.com has a score of 65.8 (B) against AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP's 48.8 (D). Both do weather current. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 32 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-weatherapi-com
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-weatherapi-com.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-weatherapi-com.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-weatherapi-com.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

WeatherAPI.com has a score of 65.8 (B) against AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP's 48.8 (D). Both do weather current. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 32 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
- WeatherAPI.com: grade B, 65.8/100, rank #169 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weatherapi-com.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weatherapi-com.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 WeatherAPI.com for reliability (+25), schema & documentation (+29), agent ergonomics (+20), payments & pricing (+5), maintenance & community (+32), transparency & trust (+10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP | WeatherAPI.com | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 90 | WeatherAPI.com +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 89 | WeatherAPI.com +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 80 | WeatherAPI.com +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 39 | 37 | AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 30 | WeatherAPI.com +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 13 | 45 | WeatherAPI.com +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 70 | WeatherAPI.com +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **48.8 · D** | **65.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP | WeatherAPI.com |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | AccuWeather | WeatherAPI.com (Zoomash Ltd) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://dataservice.accuweather.com` | `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | none | none |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (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.

**WeatherAPI.com.** 3 million calls for $7 a month, and 100,000 a month free with no card. Key only in the query string, and no security.txt.

## 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

### WeatherAPI.com

1. Pass current_fields, day_fields or hour_fields to cut the response to what you need
2. Treat a 403 with error code 2007 as the monthly quota, not a bad key. There's no 429
3. Reuse the id from search.json (q=id:NNN) to avoid ambiguous city names
4. Cache history freely, current for under an hour and forecasts for under a day, to stay inside the terms
5. Use https://api.weatherapi.com/v1. The docs still show an http:// base URL

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