# Open-Meteo vs The Weather Company Data APIs

> Open-Meteo scores 63.4 (B) to The Weather Company Data's 52.6 (D) for weather data. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weather-company
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weather-company.md (~2,850 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weather-company.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-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

Open-Meteo scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against The Weather Company Data APIs's 52.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. The Weather Company Data APIs leads on reliability and security & auth. 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
- The Weather Company Data APIs: grade D, 52.6/100, rank #734 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weather-company.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weather-company.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:
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 67
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 49

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

Watch for: Commercial prices appear only at Stripe checkout

### 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 50
- Security & auth, 48 against 38

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 | Open-Meteo | The Weather Company Data APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 73 | The Weather Company Data APIs +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 67 | Open-Meteo +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 54 | Open-Meteo +31 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 48 | The Weather Company Data APIs +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 20 | Open-Meteo +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 36 | Open-Meteo +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 49 | Open-Meteo +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **52.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Open-Meteo | The Weather Company Data APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Open-Meteo | The Weather Company, LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast` | `https://api.weather.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (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 | 2026-09-10 | 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 | 6.2k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Open-Meteo or The Weather Company Data APIs?

Open-Meteo scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against The Weather Company Data APIs's 52.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. The Weather Company Data APIs leads on reliability and security & auth.

### Do Open-Meteo and The Weather Company Data APIs need an API key?

Open-Meteo needs no key. The Weather Company Data APIs needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Open-Meteo and The Weather Company Data APIs without installing anything?

Yes. Open-Meteo has a hosted endpoint at https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast and The Weather Company Data APIs at https://api.weather.com.

### Are Open-Meteo and The Weather Company Data APIs open source?

Open-Meteo is open source (AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (data)). No open-source release is listed for The Weather Company Data APIs.


## For agents

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

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