Head to head · Weather forecasts · October 2026 research run

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) vs Meteosource Weather MCP

Meteosource Weather MCP scores 50.9 (D) on agent readiness against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 30 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do weather forecasts.

Best weather and climate data APIs for AI agents · All 136 weather comparisons

Which one, for what

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) F

Best for Best when a UK answer has to come from the national weather service.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 56 against 42
  • Transparency & trust, 53 against 32

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No OpenAPI, llms.txt, SDK or MCP server found

Meteosource Weather MCP D

Best for Agents that answer weather questions, plan around severe weather or estimate solar and wind output.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 35 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 72 against 32
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 45
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 0
  • Maintenance & community, 70 against 0

Watch for

Plain API key, no OAuth

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community Meteosource Weather MCP +70

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) 0

No dated API change or release note found. The official utilities have no tag since public-2025.1.1 (18 June 2025). The site-specific script last changed in December 2023. The 11 February 2026 commit removed a beta label from two README files for the probabilistic forecast, and the 22 September commit fixed only the atmospheric download script, so none sets recency for this API (0). No dated API changes in the 90 days from 7 August (0). Support routes were read only on the struck hub, and no public changelog was found (0). No SDK or MCP server (0). The utilities repository has no CI (0). Total 0.

Meteosource Weather MCP 70

Repository commit and tag v0.1.2 on 26 October 2026 (30). Three tags in 90 days (20). Repository issues not read (0). Official registry entry com.meteosource/weather (15). Small repository with server.json; server source not public (5 of 10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 70. Registry presence read from Anchor Terminal's own daily import of the official MCP registry (/api/v1/registry.json, 6 November 2026), not the registry's API.

Schema & documentation Meteosource Weather MCP +40

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) 32

datahub.metoffice.gov.uk answered robots.txt on 5 November with a redirect to its sign-in page, so readings from that host (overview, pricing, FAQ, service status) are struck. No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract found (0). No llms.txt or Markdown docs (0). The official utilities' documentation, re-read on 5 November, says what the site-specific script retrieves and explains each parameter, with little on when to use which product (12 of 20, partial carried). timesteps takes hourly, three-hourly or daily, latitude must be between -90 and 90 and longitude between -180 and 180, and the key, latitude and longitude are required (10 of 15). Example commands and sample code, with no error responses documented on a readable page (7 of 15, partial carried). The path is /v0 and there's no changelog (3 of 15). Total 32.

Meteosource Weather MCP 72

Seven tools read from tools/list with JSON Schema inputs (25). No llms.txt found; the README is Markdown on GitHub (5 of 10). Descriptions say what each returns and which plan it needs (15 of 20). Typed inputs, no enums (10 of 15). A README table of error messages and fixes (10 of 15). Tagged releases v0.1.0 to v0.1.2, no changelog file (7 of 15). 25 + 5 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 7 = 72.

Agent ergonomics Meteosource Weather MCP +30

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) 45

excludeParameterMetadata=true drops the parameter descriptions, includeLocationName toggles the location name, and the timestep sets the length, per the official utilities (15 of 25). No paging or field selection on Global Spot (10 of 20). The only documented error, the 429, was read on the struck hub FAQ, and the utilities just print the response body (0). Read-only GETs (15 of 20). Three required inputs, no SDK, and Python sample scripts in the MetOffice/weather_datahub_utilities repository (5 of 15). Partials carried. Total 45.

Meteosource Weather MCP 75

Seven tools, about 20 KB (25). Date ranges and location limits on history (12 of 20). Documented error messages with fixes (15 of 20). No annotations on the tools (8 of 20, all reads). Two values to connect and a cache per key; Meteosource SDKs not checked (15). 25 + 12 + 15 + 8 + 15 = 75.

Payments & pricing Meteosource Weather MCP +30

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) 0

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and the free allowance were published only on the struck hub pricing page, so no price is credited (0) and no free tier is confirmed (0). A person registers, creates an application and orders a plan in a browser (0). Total 0.

Meteosource Weather MCP 30

No machine payment protocol (0). Plan prices with daily call quotas, public (10). Free plan with 400 calls a day, no card (20). A person signs up in a browser for the key (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.

Transparency & trust Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +21

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) 53

Closed service. The Met Office legal page, re-read on 5 November, says all Met Office information is Crown copyright and is licensed under terms that may include a fee. The DataHub's own terms and the FAQ licence summary sit on the struck hub (18 of 30, partial carried and flagged). The Met Office privacy policy, updated 3 April 2024, names the controller and a data protection contact, keeps data 'as long as necessary' and doesn't mention DataHub accounts or API usage, per the 1 October check (12 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). No processors named. Transfers outside the UK or EEA only with safeguards, per the 1 October check (6 of 20). Total 36.

Meteosource Weather MCP 32

The repository is MIT (copyright 2026 Meteosource) but holds docs and the registry manifest rather than the server; terms and privacy URLs weren't found (10 of 30). The MCP page says keys aren't stored in full and caches are per key (10 of 30). No deprecation policy (0). Subprocessors not found (5 of 20). 10 + 10 + 0 + 5 = 25.

Reliability Meteosource Weather MCP +20

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) 15

datahub.metoffice.gov.uk answered robots.txt on 5 November with a redirect to its sign-in page, so readings from that host (overview, pricing, FAQ, service status) are struck. The service status page was read only there (0). No incident record to read (5). Daily call limits were published only on the struck pricing page and FAQ (0). The FAQ's 429 reading is struck, and the official download script retries only on connection errors, waiting 10 seconds up to five times, with nothing on 429 (0). No SLA found (0). The official utilities removed the blended probabilistic forecast's beta flag on 11 February 2026, and the Global Spot script carries none (10). Total 15.

Meteosource Weather MCP 35

status.meteosource.com wasn't reachable (0). No history (5). Daily call quotas per plan, and the README's plans-and-limits section (15). Documented limits on request size (400 location-days) with what to do, no 429 guidance (5 of 15). No SLA found (0). Version 0.1.2, not labelled beta (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 + 0 + 10 = 35.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMet Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)Meteosource Weather MCPEdge
Reliability16%201535Meteosource Weather MCP +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.23272Meteosource Weather MCP +40
Agent ergonomics13%16.24575Meteosource Weather MCP +30
Security & auth14%17.55642Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +14
Payments & pricing10%12.5030Meteosource Weather MCP +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8070Meteosource Weather MCP +70
Transparency & trust7%8.85332Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +21
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 30/100D 50.9/100

Facts side by side

FactMet Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)Meteosource Weather MCP
KindHTTP APIMCP server
VendorMet OfficeMeteosource
Hosted endpointhttps://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/pointhttps://mcp.meteosource.com/mcp
TransportsHTTPStreamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceBSD-3-Clause (utilities)Proprietary service. The repository's MIT licence covers its docs and manifest
Tools exposednone7
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtnono
MCP registrynot listedcom.meteosource/weather
Terms last updatednot read yetno document linked
Privacy policy last updatednot read yetno document linked
Agent reviews3/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)

The UK national weather service's site-specific forecast API, called with an apikey header, latitude and longitude, as the Met Office's own download scripts show. The DataHub's docs, pricing and terms sit on a host that redirects robots.txt to a sign-in page, so no contract, price or status page could be graded, and no changelog or SDK was found.

Meteosource Weather MCP

Meteosource's MCP server is a small, clear weather toolset, seven tools covering forecasts, alerts, air quality, history and renewable production, with error messages that tell the agent what to do. It uses a plain API key, has no status page we could reach, and its terms weren't found.

Before you call either

Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)

  1. Send the key in the apikey header to https://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/point/{timesteps} with latitude and longitude as query parameters
  2. Use hourly, three-hourly or daily as the timestep. The official script accepts no other value
  3. Add excludeParameterMetadata=true to drop the parameter descriptions from every response
  4. Read the plan's daily limit and licence terms when ordering on the DataHub, since they sit behind its sign-in

Meteosource Weather MCP

  1. Call search_places first to resolve a location
  2. Split history requests over 400 location-days into shorter ranges
  3. Production tools need the Renewables plan; check which tools the key exposes
  4. Send the key in a header, never in a URL

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) or Meteosource Weather MCP?

Meteosource Weather MCP scores 50.9 (D) on agent readiness against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 30 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

Do Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) and Meteosource Weather MCP need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) and Meteosource Weather MCP without installing anything?

Yes. Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) has a hosted endpoint at https://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/point and Meteosource Weather MCP at https://mcp.meteosource.com/mcp.

Other comparisons with Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) or Meteosource Weather MCP

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