# The Weather Company Data APIs vs WeatherAPI.com

> WeatherAPI.com scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against The Weather Company Data APIs's 52.6 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. The Weather Company Data APIs leads on security & auth. Both do weather current. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/weather-company-vs-weatherapi-com
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/weather-company-vs-weatherapi-com.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/weather-company-vs-weatherapi-com.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/weather-company-vs-weatherapi-com.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

WeatherAPI.com scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against The Weather Company Data APIs's 52.6 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. The Weather Company Data APIs leads on security & auth. Both do weather current.

- 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
- WeatherAPI.com: grade B, 65.3/100, rank #260 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weatherapi-com.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/weatherapi-com.json

## Which one, for what

### 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:
- Security & auth, 48 against 37

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.

### WeatherAPI.com (B)

Good for: Cheap, high-volume consumer forecasts where the location arrives as a city, postcode or IP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 73
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 67
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 45 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 49

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

Watch for: Key only in the query string, and no security.txt


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | The Weather Company Data APIs | WeatherAPI.com | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 90 | WeatherAPI.com +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 89 | WeatherAPI.com +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 80 | WeatherAPI.com +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 37 | The Weather Company Data APIs +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | WeatherAPI.com +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 36 | 45 | WeatherAPI.com +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 65 | WeatherAPI.com +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **52.6 · D** | **65.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | The Weather Company Data APIs | WeatherAPI.com |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | The Weather Company, LLC | WeatherAPI.com (Zoomash Ltd) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.weather.com` | `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service. Use is under a content licensing agreement with The Weather Company, which is not published | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-14 | none |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**WeatherAPI.com.** 3 million calls for $7 a month, and 100,000 a month free with no card. Key only in the query string, and no security.txt.

## Before you call either

### 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.

### WeatherAPI.com

1. Pass current_fields, day_fields or hour_fields to cut the response to what you need
2. Treat a 403 with error code 2007 as the monthly quota, not a bad key. There's no 429
3. Reuse the id from search.json (q=id:NNN) to avoid ambiguous city names
4. Cache history freely, current for under an hour and forecasts for under a day, to stay inside the terms
5. Use https://api.weatherapi.com/v1. The docs still show an http:// base URL

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, The Weather Company Data APIs or WeatherAPI.com?

WeatherAPI.com scores 65.3 (B) on agent readiness against The Weather Company Data APIs's 52.6 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. The Weather Company Data APIs leads on security & auth.

### Do The Weather Company Data APIs and WeatherAPI.com need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call The Weather Company Data APIs and WeatherAPI.com without installing anything?

Yes. The Weather Company Data APIs has a hosted endpoint at https://api.weather.com and WeatherAPI.com at https://api.weatherapi.com/v1.


## For agents

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

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