# NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) vs The Weather Company Data APIs

> The Weather Company Data APIs scores 52.6 (D) on agent readiness against NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)'s 49.6 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-vs-weather-company
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-vs-weather-company.md (~2,850 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-vs-weather-company.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-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 NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)'s 49.6 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do weather current.

- 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
- 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

### 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:
- Agent ergonomics, 66 against 54
- Security & auth, 53 against 48
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 49

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

Watch for: US and territories only

### 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 25
- Maintenance & community, 36 against 8

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 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) | The Weather Company Data APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 25 | 73 | The Weather Company Data APIs +48 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 67 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 54 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 48 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 8 | 36 | The Weather Company Data APIs +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 49 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.6 · D** | **52.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) | The Weather Company Data APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | National Weather Service | The Weather Company, LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.weather.gov` | `https://api.weather.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Public domain (data) | 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 | 2026-03-19 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 310 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 4.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

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

**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

### 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

### 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, NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) or The Weather Company Data APIs?

The Weather Company Data APIs scores 52.6 (D) on agent readiness against NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)'s 49.6 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Do NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) and The Weather Company Data APIs need an API key?

NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) needs no key. The Weather Company Data APIs needs an API key.

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

Yes. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) has a hosted endpoint at https://api.weather.gov and The Weather Company Data APIs at https://api.weather.com.


## For agents

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

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