# OpenWeather One Call API vs Weatherbit API

> Weatherbit API and OpenWeather One Call API score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.7 (C) and 57.4 (C). OpenWeather One Call API leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do weather current. Category scores, facts, verdicts…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-weatherbit
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-weatherbit.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openweather-one-call-vs-weatherbit.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- 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

Weatherbit API and OpenWeather One Call API score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.7 (C) and 57.4 (C). OpenWeather One Call API leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. 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
- Weatherbit API: grade C, 57.7/100, rank #466 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weatherbit.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weatherbit.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 61
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 21

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

### Weatherbit API (C)

Good for: An application that needs forecasts plus specialised datasets (air quality, lightning, soil and degree days) from one paid subscription, queried by coordinates.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 91 against 45

Watch for: The key is accepted only as the `key` query parameter, and the spec lists plain http as a scheme


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | OpenWeather One Call API | Weatherbit API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 91 | Weatherbit API +46 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 72 | Weatherbit API +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 61 | OpenWeather One Call API +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 42 | 39 | OpenWeather One Call API +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | OpenWeather One Call API +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 21 | OpenWeather One Call API +39 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 63 | Weatherbit API +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.4 · C** | **57.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenWeather One Call API | Weatherbit API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | OpenWeather | Weatherbit LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/onecall` | `https://api.weatherbit.io/v2.0` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Weatherbit's terms of service. The free plan's data is under a Creative Commons non-commercial licence. The Python SDK is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 6 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `org.openweathermap/agents` | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2025-08-01 |
| Terms last updated |  | 2025-05-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-07-18 | 2023-12-26 |
| 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 | none | 78 PyPI/wk |
| 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.

**Weatherbit API.** A read-only weather API with a Swagger 2.0 spec, quota headers on every response and a status page showing 100 per cent on three API monitors over 90 days. The key travels only in the query string, the free plan allows 50 requests a day for non-commercial use, and the last dated API announcement is 1 August 2025.

## 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

### Weatherbit API

1. Pass lat and lon. City, postal code and station lookups are accepted, but the docs recommend coordinates and mark station ID as use with caution
2. Read X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset on each response. Daily quotas reset at 00:00 UTC and a spent quota returns 429 until then
3. Treat HTTP 204 with an empty body as no data found, not as an error
4. Split historical requests into ranges of one month or less. History needs the Plus plan or higher and has its own daily quota
5. Keep the key out of logs. It is part of the URL on every call, so always use https://api.weatherbit.io/v2.0

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, OpenWeather One Call API or Weatherbit API?

Weatherbit API and OpenWeather One Call API score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.7 (C) and 57.4 (C). OpenWeather One Call API leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do OpenWeather One Call API and Weatherbit API need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call OpenWeather One Call API and Weatherbit API without installing anything?

Yes. OpenWeather One Call API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/onecall and Weatherbit API at https://api.weatherbit.io/v2.0.


## For agents

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

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