# OpenWeather One Call API vs The Weather Company Data APIs

> OpenWeather One Call API scores 57.4 (C) 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 current. Category scores, facts, verdicts…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-weather-company
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-weather-company.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-weather-company.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-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

OpenWeather One Call API scores 57.4 (C) 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 current.

- OpenWeather One Call API: grade C, 57.4/100, rank #474 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openweather-one-call.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openweather-one-call.json
- The Weather Company Data APIs: grade D, 52.6/100, rank #565 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weather-company.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weather-company.json

## Which one, for what

### OpenWeather One Call API (C)

Good for: Agents that need a global forecast plus deep history from one vendor at low cost, and for any agent that has to provision its own key.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 49

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

Watch for: The main API takes the key only as the appid query parameter

### 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 45
- Security & auth, 48 against 42

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 | OpenWeather One Call API | The Weather Company Data APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 73 | The Weather Company Data APIs +28 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 67 | OpenWeather One Call API +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 54 | OpenWeather One Call API +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 42 | 48 | The Weather Company Data APIs +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | OpenWeather One Call API +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 36 | OpenWeather One Call API +24 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 49 | OpenWeather One Call API +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.4 · C** | **52.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenWeather One Call API | The Weather Company Data APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | OpenWeather | The Weather Company, LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/onecall` | `https://api.weather.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service. Use is under a content licensing agreement with The Weather Company, which is not published |
| Tools exposed | 6 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `org.openweathermap/agents` | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated |  | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-07-18 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**OpenWeather One Call API.** 1,000 free calls a day, then $0.0015 a call, or $0.001 on the agent lane. The main API takes the key only as the appid query parameter.

**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

### OpenWeather One Call API

1. Sign up on the agent lane with POST https://agents.openweathermap.org/v1/accounts and keep the data key. It's shown once
2. Check GET https://data.openweathermap.org/account/balance for credit. No data response carries a cost or balance
3. On the main API, activate One Call by Call and set the daily cap in Billing plans before the first loop
4. Pass units=metric. The default is Kelvin
5. Use exclude=minutely,alerts on 3.0, or the 4.0 timeline step you need, to shrink responses

### 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, OpenWeather One Call API or The Weather Company Data APIs?

OpenWeather One Call API scores 57.4 (C) 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 OpenWeather One Call API and The Weather Company Data APIs need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call OpenWeather One Call API and The Weather Company Data APIs without installing anything?

Yes. OpenWeather One Call API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/onecall and The Weather Company Data APIs at https://api.weather.com.


## For agents

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

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