# Visual Crossing Weather API vs The Weather Company Data APIs

> Visual Crossing Weather API scores 59.9 (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…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-weather-company
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-weather-company.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visual-crossing-vs-weather-company.min.md (~780 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

Visual Crossing Weather API scores 59.9 (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.

- Visual Crossing Weather API: grade C, 59.9/100, rank #417 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visual-crossing.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/visual-crossing.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

### Visual Crossing Weather API (C)

Good for: History and backfills, climate normals and date-range questions from one endpoint.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 67
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 58 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 49

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

Watch for: Key only in the query string on the REST API

### 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 66
- Security & auth, 48 against 40

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 | Visual Crossing Weather API | The Weather Company Data APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 73 | The Weather Company Data APIs +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 67 | Visual Crossing Weather API +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 54 | Visual Crossing Weather API +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 48 | The Weather Company Data APIs +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | Visual Crossing Weather API +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 36 | Visual Crossing Weather API +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 49 | Visual Crossing Weather API +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.9 · C** | **52.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Visual Crossing Weather API | The Weather Company Data APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Visual Crossing | The Weather Company, LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline` | `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 | 1 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2023-01-01 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Visual Crossing Weather API.** History from 1970, current conditions and a 15-day forecast from one endpoint. Key only in the query string on the REST API.

**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

### Visual Crossing Weather API

1. Always pass include= and elements=. A bare call returns days, hours and current for every element and burns records
2. Count records before a backfill. Hourly data is 24 records a day, so a year for one place is 8,760
3. Pass unitGroup=metric. The default is US units
4. Use the MCP server with X-VC-API-Key rather than pasting the key into a URL
5. Keep to one request at a time on Free and Professional. A second concurrent job returns 429

### 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, Visual Crossing Weather API or The Weather Company Data APIs?

Visual Crossing Weather API scores 59.9 (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 Visual Crossing Weather API and The Weather Company Data APIs need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Visual Crossing Weather API and The Weather Company Data APIs without installing anything?

Yes. Visual Crossing Weather API has a hosted endpoint at https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline and The Weather Company Data APIs at https://api.weather.com.


## For agents

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

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