# WeatherAPI.com vs Xweather Weather API

> Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against WeatherAPI.com's 65.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. WeatherAPI.com leads on reliability and schema & documentation. Both do weather current. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by…

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

Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against WeatherAPI.com's 65.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. WeatherAPI.com leads on reliability and schema & documentation. Both do weather current.

- 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
- Xweather Weather API: grade B, 67.1/100, rank #219 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/xweather.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/xweather.json

## Which one, for what

### 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 74
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 83

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

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

### 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:
- Security & auth, 52 against 37
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 45

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

| Category | Weight | WeatherAPI.com | Xweather Weather API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 74 | WeatherAPI.com +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 83 | WeatherAPI.com +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 78 | WeatherAPI.com +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 52 | Xweather Weather API +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 32 | Xweather Weather API +2 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 81 | Xweather Weather API +36 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 68 | Xweather Weather API +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.3 · B** | **67.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | WeatherAPI.com | Xweather Weather API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | WeatherAPI.com (Zoomash Ltd) | Vaisala Oyj |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1` | `https://data.api.xweather.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under the General Conditions of Subscription Services of Vaisala Group. The OpenAPI files and the agent skills on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 19 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `com.xweather/weather` |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2020-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 0 stars, 1.4k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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, WeatherAPI.com or Xweather Weather API?

Xweather Weather API scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against WeatherAPI.com's 65.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. WeatherAPI.com leads on reliability and schema & documentation.

### Do WeatherAPI.com and Xweather Weather API need an API key?

WeatherAPI.com needs an API key. Xweather Weather API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call WeatherAPI.com and Xweather Weather API without installing anything?

Yes. WeatherAPI.com has a hosted endpoint at https://api.weatherapi.com/v1 and Xweather Weather API at https://data.api.xweather.com.


## For agents

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

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