# Open-Meteo vs Xweather Weather API

> Xweather Weather scores 67.1 (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-xweather
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-xweather.md (~2,850 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-xweather.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/open-meteo-vs-xweather.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

Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Open-Meteo's 63.4 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Open-Meteo leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. 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
- Xweather Weather API: grade B, 67.1/100, rank #265 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/xweather.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/xweather.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 32
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 81

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

Watch for: Commercial prices appear only at Stripe checkout

### Xweather Weather API (B)

Good for: Teams that need lightning, hail, road weather or tropical data beside ordinary conditions and forecasts, with an MCP server and an OpenAPI file ready for agents.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 74 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 77
- Security & auth, 52 against 38

Watch for: The REST API documents `client_id` and `client_secret` only as query parameters, and the MCP server also accepts the key as `?api_key=`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Open-Meteo | Xweather Weather API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 74 | Xweather Weather API +24 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 83 | Xweather Weather API +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 78 | Open-Meteo +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 52 | Xweather Weather API +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 32 | Open-Meteo +18 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 81 | Open-Meteo +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 68 | Open-Meteo +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **67.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Open-Meteo | Xweather Weather API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Open-Meteo | Vaisala Oyj |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast` | `https://data.api.xweather.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 (code), CC BY 4.0 (data) | Proprietary service under the General Conditions of Subscription Services of Vaisala Group. The OpenAPI files and the agent skills on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 19 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `com.xweather/weather` |
| Last release | 2026-09-10 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2020-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 6.2k stars | 0 stars, 1.4k npm/wk |
| 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.

**Xweather Weather API.** A public OpenAPI file with 236 operations, a hosted MCP server in the official registry and a free tier of 15,000 accesses a month suit agents. REST credentials travel only in the query string, per-minute limits are unpublished, and the group terms bar commercial use of free plans and passing data to third parties unless a service description allows it.

## 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

### Xweather Weather API

1. Check `success` and `error.code` on every response. Application errors such as `invalid_location` return HTTP 200 with `success` false
2. Send `fields`, `limit` and `plimit`. The docs put a 15-day hourly forecast at about 600 KB, and about 25 KB with three fields
3. Read `X-Cost-Tokens` after each call. Cost is the endpoint multiplier times the intervals requested, so narrow `from` and `to`
4. For MCP, send `Authorization: Bearer <client_id>_<client_secret>` and avoid the `api_key` query parameter, which puts the secret in the URL
5. Add `include_tags` or `include_tools` to the MCP URL to load only the tool groups the task needs
6. On 429 read `Retry-After` and the `X-RateLimit-Reset-*` headers. `maxhits_min` clears at the next minute, `maxhits` at the period reset

## Questions

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

Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Open-Meteo's 63.4 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Open-Meteo leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

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

Open-Meteo needs no key. Xweather Weather API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Open-Meteo has a hosted endpoint at https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast and Xweather Weather API at https://data.api.xweather.com.

### Are Open-Meteo and Xweather 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 Xweather Weather API.


## For agents

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

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