# Google Weather API (Maps Platform) vs WeatherAPI.com

> Google Weather API (Maps Platform) has a score of 67 (B) against WeatherAPI.com's 65.8 (B). Both do weather current. The largest gap is security & auth, 34 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: 2026-10-05

Google Weather API (Maps Platform) has a score of 67 (B) against WeatherAPI.com's 65.8 (B). Both do weather current. The largest gap is security & auth, 34 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
- 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 Google Weather API (Maps Platform) for security & auth (+34), transparency & trust (+5).

Pick WeatherAPI.com for reliability (+5), schema & documentation (+7), payments & pricing (+5), maintenance & community (+25).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | WeatherAPI.com | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 90 | WeatherAPI.com +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 89 | WeatherAPI.com +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 80 | WeatherAPI.com +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 37 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +34 |
| 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) | 20 | 45 | WeatherAPI.com +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 70 | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67 · B** | **65.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | WeatherAPI.com |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google | WeatherAPI.com (Zoomash Ltd) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://weather.googleapis.com/v1` | `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2025-11-18 | none |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (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.

**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

### 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

### 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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- [AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs Google Weather API (Maps Platform)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-google-weather-api.md)
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