Head to head · Weather current · October 2026 research run

OpenWeather One Call API vs Xweather Weather API

Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against OpenWeather One Call API's 57.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. OpenWeather One Call API leads on payments & pricing. Both do weather current.

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

  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 32

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The main API takes the key only as the appid query parameter

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 45
  • Schema & documentation, 83 against 68
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 73
  • Security & auth, 52 against 42
  • Maintenance & community, 81 against 60
  • Transparency & trust, 68 against 61

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

CategoryWeight this runOpenWeather One Call APIXweather Weather APIEdge
Reliability16%204574Xweather Weather API +29
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26883Xweather Weather API +15
Agent ergonomics13%16.27378Xweather Weather API +5
Security & auth14%17.54252Xweather Weather API +10
Payments & pricing10%12.56032OpenWeather One Call API +28
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86081Xweather Weather API +21
Transparency & trust7%8.86168Xweather Weather API +7
Negative events≤1500
Total57.4 · C67.1 · B

Facts side by side

FactOpenWeather One Call APIXweather Weather API
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorOpenWeatherVaisala Oyj
Hosted endpointhttps://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/onecallhttps://data.api.xweather.com
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary service under the General Conditions of Subscription Services of Vaisala Group. The OpenAPI files and the agent skills on GitHub are MIT
Tools exposed619
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryorg.openweathermap/agentscom.xweather/weather
Last releasenone2026-09-14
Terms last updatedcouldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2022-07-182020-06-01
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be read
Popularitynone0 stars, 1.4k npm/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (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.

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

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

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, OpenWeather One Call API or Xweather Weather API?

Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against OpenWeather One Call API's 57.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. OpenWeather One Call API leads on payments & pricing.

Do OpenWeather One Call API and Xweather Weather API need an API key?

OpenWeather One Call API needs an API key. Xweather Weather API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call OpenWeather One Call API and Xweather Weather API without installing anything?

Yes. OpenWeather One Call API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openweathermap.org/data/3.0/onecall and Xweather Weather API at https://data.api.xweather.com.

Other comparisons with OpenWeather One Call API or Xweather Weather API

Machine-readable

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