# Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) vs The Weather Company Data APIs

> The Weather Company Data APIs scores 52.6 (D) on agent readiness against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency &…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weather-company
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weather-company.md (~2,850 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weather-company.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weather-company.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: 2026-10-08

The Weather Company Data APIs scores 52.6 (D) on agent readiness against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do weather current.

- Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific): grade E, 45.5/100, rank #656 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/met-office-datahub.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/met-office-datahub.json
- The Weather Company Data APIs: grade D, 52.6/100, rank #565 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weather-company.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weather-company.json

## Which one, for what

### Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) (E)

Good for: Best when a UK answer has to come from the national weather service, and when the licence to republish matters.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 66 against 48
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 49

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No OpenAPI, llms.txt, SDK or MCP server

### The Weather Company Data APIs (D)

Good for: A business that wants one contract for global forecasts, 4 km current conditions, alerts, imagery, aviation and deep history, and that can go through sales.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 48
- Schema & documentation, 67 against 32
- Maintenance & community, 36 against 15

Watch for: No self-serve signup. The trial is requested through a form, is limited to enterprise customers, and the Buy now button opens a contact form.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | The Weather Company Data APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 73 | The Weather Company Data APIs +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 32 | 67 | The Weather Company Data APIs +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 54 | The Weather Company Data APIs +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 48 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 20 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 36 | The Weather Company Data APIs +21 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 49 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **45.5 · E** | **52.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | The Weather Company Data APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Met Office | The Weather Company, LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/point` | `https://api.weather.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | BSD-3-Clause (utilities) | Proprietary service. Use is under a content licensing agreement with The Weather Company, which is not published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-04-03 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**The Weather Company Data APIs.** A wide weather data API with 168 API references built from OpenAPI documents, global 4 km current conditions, hourly history from June 2015 and a status page with component history. Keys come only through a sales-reviewed trial or contract, travel only in the URL, and the terms that govern the API are not published.

## Before you call either

### 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

### The Weather Company Data APIs

1. Send `units`, `language` and `format=json` with a location on every v3 call, plus `Accept-Encoding: gzip`, which the usage guide marks as required.
2. Keep the key out of logs and client-side code, because it travels in the query string as `apiKey`.
3. Treat a 401 as either a bad key, an endpoint outside the key's package or an exceeded limit, and treat a 204 as no data for the query.
4. Each forecast duration (`3day` to `15day`) is a separate entitlement. Request only durations the contract covers.
5. Use `/v3/aggcommon` to combine up to 10 products in one request. Each product and each location still counts as one call.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) or The Weather Company Data APIs?

The Weather Company Data APIs scores 52.6 (D) on agent readiness against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Do Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) and The Weather Company Data APIs need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) and The Weather Company Data APIs 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 The Weather Company Data APIs at https://api.weather.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weather-company.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weather-company.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "met-office-datahub", "b": "weather-company"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare met-office-datahub weather-company`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/met-office-datahub.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weather-company.json

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