# meteoblue Weather API vs NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)

> meteoblue Weather API scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)'s 49.6 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) leads on payments & pricing. Both do weather current.…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meteoblue-vs-nws-api
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meteoblue-vs-nws-api.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meteoblue-vs-nws-api.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meteoblue-vs-nws-api.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

meteoblue Weather API scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)'s 49.6 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) leads on payments & pricing. Both do weather current.

- meteoblue Weather API: grade C, 61.7/100, rank #360 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/meteoblue.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/meteoblue.json
- NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov): grade D, 49.6/100, rank #605 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nws-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nws-api.json

## Which one, for what

### meteoblue Weather API (C)

Good for: Energy, agriculture and marine applications that need solar, wind, soil, sea or ensemble variables at a point, with history back to 1940 on a paid plan.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 25
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 67
- Maintenance & community, 57 against 8

Watch for: The key is accepted only as the `apikey` query parameter, so it appears in URLs and logs unless request signing is switched on

### NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) (D)

Good for: The authoritative US forecast and alert feed, best for alerting and US-only agents that can tolerate a government service's availability.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 34

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: US and territories only


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | meteoblue Weather API | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 25 | meteoblue Weather API +50 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 67 | meteoblue Weather API +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 66 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 51 | 53 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 34 | 60 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +26 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 8 | meteoblue Weather API +49 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 63 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **61.7 · C** | **49.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | meteoblue Weather API | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | meteoblue AG | National Weather Service |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://my.meteoblue.com` | `https://api.weather.gov` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under meteoblue's general terms and conditions. The Python SDK for the Dataset API is MIT | Public domain (data) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-08-22 | 2026-03-19 |
| Terms last updated | 2018-05-24 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-05-15 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 8 stars, 512 PyPI/wk | 310 stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 4.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**meteoblue Weather API.** Eight of the APIs publish OpenAPI 3.1 specs, and the Forecast API spec lists the credit cost of every package. A public Pingdom page shows monthly uptime per API. The key travels only in the query string, the free trial covers nine forecast packages, and no security.txt, certification or DPA was found.

**NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov).** Free, no key and no account, with public domain data. US and territories only.

## Before you call either

### meteoblue Weather API

1. Pass `lat`, `lon` and `apikey` to `https://my.meteoblue.com/packages/<package>`. Join packages with commas, such as `basic-1h,basic-day`, to get several in one call
2. Budget credits before calling. One call costs 4,000 to 96,000 credits by package, and the free trial holds 10 million for a year. Read `MB-Credits-Accounted` on each response
3. Set `forecastDays` and pick the coarsest resolution that does the job. Without it the API returns every forecast day it has
4. Call with a 30-second timeout, wait 30 seconds after an error and stop after 10 retries, as the availability page advises. The default limit is 500 calls a minute
5. Keep the key out of logs, since it is part of every URL. Ask for a shared secret and send `expire` and `sig` if URLs may be seen by others

### NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)

1. Set User-Agent to your app name and a contact email or the request is refused with 403
2. Cache the /points response per coordinate. The office and grid rarely change
3. Round coordinates to four decimal places. More precision returns an error
4. Don't add cache-busting query parameters. Unknown parameters return 400
5. Back off about five seconds after a throttled request and reuse the last good response

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, meteoblue Weather API or NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)?

meteoblue Weather API scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)'s 49.6 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) leads on payments & pricing.

### Do meteoblue Weather API and NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) need an API key?

meteoblue Weather API needs an API key. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) needs no key.

### Can an agent call meteoblue Weather API and NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) without installing anything?

Yes. meteoblue Weather API has a hosted endpoint at https://my.meteoblue.com and NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) at https://api.weather.gov.


## For agents

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

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