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Head to head · Weather current · October 2026 research run

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

Weatherbit API scores 57.7 (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 agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do weather current.

NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)National Weather Service · HTTP API D49.6/100#528 of 629 Weatherbit APIWeatherbit LLC · HTTP API C57.7/100#413 of 629

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 61
  • Security & auth, 53 against 39
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

US and territories only

Weatherbit API C

Good for An application that needs forecasts plus specialised datasets (air quality, lightning, soil and degree days) from one paid subscription, queried by coordinates.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 91 against 25
  • Schema & documentation, 72 against 67
  • Maintenance & community, 21 against 8

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The key is accepted only as the key query parameter, and the spec lists plain http as a scheme

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)Weatherbit APIEdge
Reliability16%202591Weatherbit API +66
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26772Weatherbit API +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.26661NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +5
Security & auth14%17.55339NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +14
Payments & pricing10%12.56030NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8821Weatherbit API +13
Transparency & trust7%8.86363even
Negative events≤1500
Total49.6 · D57.7 · C

Facts side by side

FactNOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)Weatherbit API
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorNational Weather ServiceWeatherbit LLC
Hosted endpointhttps://api.weather.govhttps://api.weatherbit.io/v2.0
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicencePublic domain (data)Proprietary service under Weatherbit's terms of service. The free plan's data is under a Creative Commons non-commercial licence. The Python SDK is MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-03-192025-08-01
Terms last updatedno date given2025-05-01
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2023-12-26
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity310 stars78 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4.5/5 (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.

Weatherbit API

A read-only weather API with a Swagger 2.0 spec, quota headers on every response and a status page showing 100 per cent on three API monitors over 90 days. The key travels only in the query string, the free plan allows 50 requests a day for non-commercial use, and the last dated API announcement is 1 August 2025.

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

Weatherbit API

  1. Pass lat and lon. City, postal code and station lookups are accepted, but the docs recommend coordinates and mark station ID as use with caution
  2. Read X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset on each response. Daily quotas reset at 00:00 UTC and a spent quota returns 429 until then
  3. Treat HTTP 204 with an empty body as no data found, not as an error
  4. Split historical requests into ranges of one month or less. History needs the Plus plan or higher and has its own daily quota
  5. Keep the key out of logs. It is part of the URL on every call, so always use https://api.weatherbit.io/v2.0

Questions

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

Weatherbit API scores 57.7 (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 agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing.

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

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

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

Yes. NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) has a hosted endpoint at https://api.weather.gov and Weatherbit API at https://api.weatherbit.io/v2.0.

Other comparisons with NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) or Weatherbit API

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