# Google Weather API (Maps Platform) vs Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)

> Google Weather API (Maps Platform) has a score of 67 (B) against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E). Both do weather current. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 50 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- 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: 2026-10-04

Google Weather API (Maps Platform) has a score of 67 (B) against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E). Both do weather current. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 50 points.

- Google Weather API (Maps Platform): grade B, 67/100, rank #151 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-weather-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-weather-api.json
- Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific): grade E, 45.5/100, rank #399 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/met-office-datahub.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/met-office-datahub.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Google Weather API (Maps Platform) for reliability (+37), schema & documentation (+50), agent ergonomics (+26), security & auth (+5), maintenance & community (+5), transparency & trust (+12).

Pick Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) for payments & pricing (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 48 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +37 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 32 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +50 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 53 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 66 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 30 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 20 | 15 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 63 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67 · B** | **45.5 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google | Met Office |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://weather.googleapis.com/v1` | `https://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/point` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | BSD-3-Clause (utilities) |
| Tools exposed | none | 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 | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2025-11-18 | none |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Google Weather API (Maps Platform).** Covered by the Maps Platform SLA, 99.9 per cent with service credits. History is 24 hours only, and bulk data isn't available.

**Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific).** Statutory UK weather service, with a FAQ licence to copy, publish and adapt the data. No OpenAPI, llms.txt, SDK or MCP server.

## Before you call either

### Google Weather API (Maps Platform)

1. Ask for only the days or hours you need, one location a call. Every call is one billable event
2. Page with pageSize and pageToken rather than asking for 240 hours at once
3. Check the coverage page before promising alerts. Coverage is by country
4. Refetch rather than cache. The Maps terms give no caching window for weather content
5. Restrict the key to the Weather API and your server IPs in the Cloud console

### Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)

1. Register an application and subscribe it to the Global Spot plan first. The key is tied to that order and shown once
2. Send the key in the apikey header with Accept: application/json, and latitude and longitude as query parameters
3. Add excludeParameterMetadata=true to drop the parameter descriptions from every response
4. Pick the timestep by need. hourly covers 48 hours, three-hourly 168, daily 7 days, and each call counts against the daily limit
5. Stop on a 429. The limit is daily and resets at 00:00 UTC

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