Pirate Weather API vs Weatherbit API

Two free Weather APIs compared on access, reliability and developer ratings, using data from our daily health checks.

The verdict

Choose Pirate Weather API if you want to start without an API key, to call it from browser JavaScript, faster responses.
Choose Weatherbit API for its data: Weather API documentation for current weather, forecasts, historical weather data, air quality, maps, lightning, agriculture, and energy APIs.

	Pirate Weather API	Weatherbit API
What it does	Free weather API with forecast data similar to Dark Sky.	Weather API documentation for current weather, forecasts, historical weather data, air quality, maps, lightning, agriculture, and energy APIs.
Provider	Pirate Weather	Weatherbit
API key	Not needed	Required
HTTPS	Yes	Yes
CORS (browser calls)	Yes	Unknown
Status today	Online · 419 ms	Online · 896 ms
Uptime (30 days)	Up	Up
Developer rating	Not rated yet	Not rated yet
Price	Free / free tier	Free / free tier

Free weather API with forecast data similar to Dark Sky.

Strengths

Weather API documentation for current weather, forecasts, historical weather data, air quality, maps, lightning, agriculture, and energy APIs.

Strengths

Prototyping or a tutorial? Pick the one that needs no API key.
Calling from a web page? You need CORS. Otherwise route requests through your own server or a serverless function.
Going to production? Favour HTTPS, a strong uptime record and a provider with clear rate limits and terms. Check each API's docs before you commit.
Still unsure? Both are free to try: send one request to each and compare the data you get back.

Weatherbit API requires an API key; Pirate Weather API doesn't, so Pirate Weather API is quicker to try.

Pirate Weather API supports CORS, so front-end JavaScript can call it directly. Call the other from a server.