# Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) vs WeatherAPI.com

> WeatherAPI.com has a score of 65.8 (B) against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E). Both do weather current. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 57 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weatherapi-com
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weatherapi-com.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weatherapi-com.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-weatherapi-com.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: 2026-10-04

WeatherAPI.com has a score of 65.8 (B) against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E). Both do weather current. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 57 points.

- 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
- 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 Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) for security & auth (+29).

Pick WeatherAPI.com for reliability (+42), schema & documentation (+57), agent ergonomics (+27), maintenance & community (+30), transparency & trust (+7).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | WeatherAPI.com | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 90 | WeatherAPI.com +42 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 32 | 89 | WeatherAPI.com +57 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 80 | WeatherAPI.com +27 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 37 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 45 | WeatherAPI.com +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 70 | WeatherAPI.com +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **45.5 · E** | **65.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | WeatherAPI.com |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Met Office | WeatherAPI.com (Zoomash Ltd) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/point` | `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | BSD-3-Clause (utilities) | 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 | none | none |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## 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.

**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

### 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

### 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

## Other comparisons with Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) or WeatherAPI.com

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