# Open-Meteo vs Visual Crossing Weather API

> Open-Meteo scores 63.4 (B) to Visual Crossing Weather's 59.9 (C) for weather data. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-visual-crossing
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-visual-crossing.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-visual-crossing.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-visual-crossing.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: 2026-10-01

Open-Meteo scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against Visual Crossing Weather API's 59.9 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Visual Crossing Weather API leads on reliability. Both do weather data.

- Open-Meteo: grade B, 63.4/100, rank #394 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/open-meteo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/open-meteo.json
- Visual Crossing Weather API: grade C, 59.9/100, rank #534 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visual-crossing.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/visual-crossing.json
- Best data provider APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/data-providers/index.md
- All 31 data comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/data-providers/index.md
- Best weather and climate data APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/weather/index.md
- All 120 weather comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/weather/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Open-Meteo (B)

Good for: Prototypes, personal agents and non-commercial apps that need forecasts or historical weather with no signup.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 78
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 58
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 56

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

Watch for: Commercial prices appear only at Stripe checkout

### Visual Crossing Weather API (C)

Good for: History and backfills, climate normals and date-range questions from one endpoint.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 66 against 50

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

Watch for: Key only in the query string on the REST API


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Open-Meteo | Visual Crossing Weather API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 66 | Visual Crossing Weather API +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 74 | Open-Meteo +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 78 | Open-Meteo +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 40 | Visual Crossing Weather API +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 40 | Open-Meteo +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 58 | Open-Meteo +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 56 | Open-Meteo +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **59.9 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Open-Meteo | Visual Crossing Weather API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Open-Meteo | Visual Crossing |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast` | `https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (data) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 1 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-10 | none |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2023-01-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 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 | yes |
| 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 | 6.2k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Open-Meteo.** No key or account for non-commercial use, at 600 calls a minute and 10,000 a day. Commercial prices appear only at Stripe checkout.

**Visual Crossing Weather API.** History from 1970, current conditions and a 15-day forecast from one endpoint. Key only in the query string on the REST API.

## Before you call either

### Open-Meteo

1. Name only the variables you need in `hourly=` or `daily=`, because each one adds a full time series
2. Credit 'Weather data by Open-Meteo.com' wherever you show the data
3. Use customer-api.open-meteo.com with `&apikey=` for anything commercial, and keep that URL out of logs
4. Read `reason` on a 400. It names the bad parameter
5. Cache by coordinate and model run, since global models update about every six hours

### Visual Crossing Weather API

1. Always pass include= and elements=. A bare call returns days, hours and current for every element and burns records
2. Count records before a backfill. Hourly data is 24 records a day, so a year for one place is 8,760
3. Pass unitGroup=metric. The default is US units
4. Use the MCP server with X-VC-API-Key rather than pasting the key into a URL
5. Keep to one request at a time on Free and Professional. A second concurrent job returns 429

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Open-Meteo or Visual Crossing Weather API?

Open-Meteo scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against Visual Crossing Weather API's 59.9 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Visual Crossing Weather API leads on reliability.

### Do Open-Meteo and Visual Crossing Weather API need an API key?

Open-Meteo needs no key. Visual Crossing Weather API needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Open-Meteo and Visual Crossing Weather API without installing anything?

Yes. Open-Meteo has a hosted endpoint at https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast and Visual Crossing Weather API at https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline.

### Are Open-Meteo and Visual Crossing Weather API open source?

Open-Meteo is open source (AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (data)). No open-source release is listed for Visual Crossing Weather API.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Open-Meteo or Visual Crossing Weather API

- [AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs Visual Crossing Weather API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-visual-crossing.md)
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- [NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) vs Visual Crossing Weather API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-vs-visual-crossing.md)
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- [Visual Crossing Weather API vs The Weather Company Data APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-weather-company.md)
- [Visual Crossing Weather API vs WeatherAPI.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-weatherapi-com.md)
- [Visual Crossing Weather API vs Weatherbit API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-weatherbit.md)
- [Visual Crossing Weather API vs Xweather Weather API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-xweather.md)
- [AccuWeather Core Weather API + MCP vs Open-Meteo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/accuweather-api-vs-open-meteo.md)
- [Google Weather API (Maps Platform) vs Open-Meteo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-weather-api-vs-open-meteo.md)
- [Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) vs Open-Meteo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-open-meteo.md)
- [meteoblue Weather API vs Open-Meteo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meteoblue-vs-open-meteo.md)
- [Meteomatics Weather API vs Open-Meteo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meteomatics-vs-open-meteo.md)
- [NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) vs Open-Meteo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nws-api-vs-open-meteo.md)
- [Open-Meteo vs OpenWeather One Call API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-openweather-one-call.md)
- [Open-Meteo vs Pirate Weather](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-pirate-weather.md)
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- [Open-Meteo vs Tomorrow.io Weather API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-tomorrow-io.md)
- [Open-Meteo vs The Weather Company Data APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weather-company.md)
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