# Open-Meteo vs WeatherAPI.com

> WeatherAPI.com scores 65.3 (B) to Open-Meteo's 63.4 (B) for weather data. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weatherapi-com
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weatherapi-com.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weatherapi-com.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-weatherapi-com.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

WeatherAPI.com scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against Open-Meteo's 63.4 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Open-Meteo leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. 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
- WeatherAPI.com: grade B, 65.3/100, rank #321 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weatherapi-com.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weatherapi-com.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 80
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 65

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.0 against 3.5 out of 5

Watch for: Commercial prices appear only at Stripe checkout

### WeatherAPI.com (B)

Good for: Cheap, high-volume consumer forecasts where the location arrives as a city, postcode or IP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 77

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

Watch for: Key only in the query string, and no security.txt


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Open-Meteo | WeatherAPI.com | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 90 | WeatherAPI.com +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 89 | WeatherAPI.com +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 80 | Open-Meteo +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 37 | Open-Meteo +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 30 | Open-Meteo +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 45 | Open-Meteo +45 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 65 | Open-Meteo +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **65.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Open-Meteo | WeatherAPI.com |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Open-Meteo | WeatherAPI.com (Zoomash Ltd) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast` | `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (data) | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-10 | none |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no date given |
| 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 | yes |
| 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 | yes |
| 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) | 3.5/5 (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.

**WeatherAPI.com.** 3 million calls for $7 a month, and 100,000 a month free with no card. Key only in the query string, and no security.txt.

## 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

### WeatherAPI.com

1. Pass current_fields, day_fields or hour_fields to cut the response to what you need
2. Treat a 403 with error code 2007 as the monthly quota, not a bad key. There's no 429
3. Reuse the id from search.json (q=id:NNN) to avoid ambiguous city names
4. Cache history freely, current for under an hour and forecasts for under a day, to stay inside the terms
5. Use https://api.weatherapi.com/v1. The docs still show an http:// base URL

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Open-Meteo or WeatherAPI.com?

WeatherAPI.com scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against Open-Meteo's 63.4 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Open-Meteo leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do Open-Meteo and WeatherAPI.com need an API key?

Open-Meteo needs no key. WeatherAPI.com needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Open-Meteo and WeatherAPI.com without installing anything?

Yes. Open-Meteo has a hosted endpoint at https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast and WeatherAPI.com at https://api.weatherapi.com/v1.

### Are Open-Meteo and WeatherAPI.com open source?

Open-Meteo is open source (AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (data)). No open-source release is listed for WeatherAPI.com.


## For agents

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

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