# Google Weather API (Maps Platform) vs Pirate Weather

> Google Weather API (Maps Platform) has a score of 67 (B) against Pirate Weather's 66.2 (B). Both do weather current. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 60 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

Google Weather API (Maps Platform) has a score of 67 (B) against Pirate Weather's 66.2 (B). Both do weather current. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 60 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
- 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 Google Weather API (Maps Platform) for reliability (+10), security & auth (+26).

Pick Pirate Weather for payments & pricing (+5), maintenance & community (+60).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | Pirate Weather | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 75 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 85 | Pirate Weather +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 77 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 45 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +26 |
| 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) | 20 | 80 | Pirate Weather +60 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 71 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67 · B** | **66.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | Pirate Weather |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google | Pirate Weather |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://weather.googleapis.com/v1` | `https://api.pirateweather.net/forecast` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Apache-2.0 (docs and spec), AGPL-3.0 (API code) |
| 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 | 2026-09-23 |
| Popularity | none | 907 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4/5 (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.

**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

### 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

### 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

## Other comparisons with Google Weather API (Maps Platform) or Pirate Weather

- [AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs Google Weather API (Maps Platform)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-google-weather-api.md)
- [AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs Pirate Weather](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-pirate-weather.md)
- [Google Weather API (Maps Platform) vs Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-weather-api-vs-met-office-datahub.md)
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- [Google Weather API (Maps Platform) vs WeatherAPI.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-weather-api-vs-weatherapi-com.md)
- [Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) vs Pirate Weather](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-pirate-weather.md)
- [NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) vs Pirate Weather](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-vs-pirate-weather.md)
- [OpenWeather One Call API vs Pirate Weather](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-pirate-weather.md)
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