Pro Weather vs WeeWX: Cloud vs Self-Hosted

WeeWX has a well-earned reputation among weather enthusiasts. It is free, open source, written in Python, and once you have it dialed in, it can run for years without so much as a hiccup. The question is how much you have to invest to get it to that point, and what happens when something goes wrong.

This comparison looks at WeeWX side by side with Pro Weather, a fully hosted service that connects to your Davis WeatherLink account and builds a website for you. They solve the same problem from completely opposite angles.

How hard is each one to set up?

WeeWX takes an evening for someone comfortable in a Linux terminal — package install, config files, skins, and an upload target — and considerably longer for everyone else. Pro Weather takes about five minutes: paste a WeatherLink v2 API key, pick your subdomain and settings, and the site is live.

With WeeWX, you install via a package manager or from source, edit configuration files, set up skins, and configure the upload target. Then you point it at your station, wait for it to collect enough data to confirm it is working, and finally set up a web host to publish the generated pages. For someone at home in a terminal, that is a pleasant evening. For everyone else, it can be a frustrating day of reading docs and searching forums.

Pro Weather asks for two things: a WeatherLink v2 API key and the subdomain you want. There are no configuration files, no SSH sessions, and no upload targets to configure.

Which is more reliable in practice?

Both are reliable, but the failure modes differ. WeeWX itself rarely crashes, yet it depends on your hardware: a power cut, an SD card failure, or a full disk stops your site until you intervene. Pro Weather runs in the cloud, so an outage at your house never takes the website down.

WeeWX, once stable, is genuinely dependable — many users report months or years of uptime. But that uptime rests on the machine underneath: a Raspberry Pi with an SD card, a small Linux server, or a repurposed PC. If that machine loses power, has a filesystem error, or gets tangled in a network change, WeeWX stops until you fix it. The same applies to the web host serving the files: if the FTP connection drops, the PHP version changes, or the disk fills up, your public site goes stale.

Pro Weather has no single point of failure at your end. As long as your station is online and reporting to WeatherLink (which it already does), the service fetches and publishes the data every 10 minutes regardless of what is happening at your house.

Which gives you more control?

WeeWX wins on control, decisively. Its Python plugin and skin architecture can produce almost any output imaginable, from bespoke HTML to home-automation feeds. Pro Weather trades that for curated dashboard customization — logo, banner, colors, fonts, header style, tab layout, custom domain — with no custom code, but also nothing to test or maintain.

WeeWX's extension system lets you write custom Python, generate JSON, feed data to home automation systems, or build a completely bespoke site. If you want total programmatic control, WeeWX is the most flexible option available, full stop.

Pro Weather's customization lives in its dashboard: your own logo, banner photo, color scheme, fonts, dark mode, header style, and tab layout, plus a custom domain with automatic SSL. What you cannot do is write custom code or modify the rendering pipeline. The flip side is that every site is tested, responsive, and performant out of the box.

Who keeps your data history safe?

WeeWX stores history in a SQLite or MySQL database on your machine, so it is exactly as safe as your backup routine. Pro Weather stores your full history on its servers indefinitely, building it forward from the day you connect — charts, records, and the almanac keep growing and never roll off.

With WeeWX, if the SD card fails and you have no backup, the data is gone. That is not a knock on the software — it is simply what self-hosting means.

Worth knowing before you switch: Pro Weather does not import an existing WeeWX database. Its history starts when you connect your station, which is a good argument for connecting early, even while WeeWX keeps running alongside.

What does each actually cost?

WeeWX is free software, but running it typically means €70–100 for a Raspberry Pi setup, €10–15 per year in electricity, €3–10 per month for web hosting, and your time. Pro Weather is €5.99/month or €59/year, with hosting, a custom domain, SSL, and unlimited data storage included.

Breaking the WeeWX side down:

• A device to run it on: a Raspberry Pi with a case and power supply costs roughly €70–100, plus SD cards that fail periodically
• Electricity: running a Pi 24/7 costs roughly €10–15 per year
• A web host: typically €3–10/month to serve the generated site with PHP and MySQL support
• Your time: initial setup, ongoing maintenance, troubleshooting, and recovery from failures

Pro Weather's single price includes everything, and the 14-day free trial needs no credit card.

Quick comparison

Which is right for you?

Choose WeeWX if you enjoy working on the command line, want total programmatic control over your data and output, have reliable always-on hardware, and are comfortable maintaining both the software and a web host.

Choose Pro Weather if you want a polished weather website that stays online automatically, with no server to run, no backups to manage, and no troubleshooting when something breaks.

If your real question is WeeWX versus the other big self-hosted engine, we compared them directly in CumulusMX vs WeeWX.

Common questions

Does WeeWX work with WeatherLink Live?

Yes. WeeWX drivers can read a WeatherLink Live directly over your local network, using its local API and real-time UDP broadcasts, with no paid subscription needed for local access. If you are unsure whether you own a WeatherLink Live, a console, or a classic data logger, our guide to Davis's connection hardware explains the differences.

Do I lose my WeeWX data if I switch to Pro Weather?

No. Your WeeWX database stays on your machine, untouched. Pro Weather does not import it — it builds its own history forward from the day you connect — but nothing is deleted, and many people simply keep WeeWX archiving locally while Pro Weather runs the public site. The two histories coexist; they just start on different dates.

Can I run WeeWX and Pro Weather at the same time?

Yes, with zero conflict. WeeWX reads your station over your local network while Pro Weather reads the WeatherLink cloud API — two independent consumers of the same sensors. Running both during the free trial is the most honest way to decide, because you can compare the sites side by side on live data.

Do I need a paid WeatherLink plan for Pro Weather?

No. The free WeatherLink Basic plan and its free v2 API key are enough — Pro Weather connects, auto-discovers your sensors, and starts building history forward from that day. The paid tiers change what Davis offers on their side, which we unpack in WeatherLink Basic vs Pro vs Pro+, but none of it is required.

Can WeeWX upload to Weather Underground?

Yes. WeeWX ships with built-in services for Weather Underground, CWOP, PWSweather, WOW, and AWEKAS — you enable them in the config file with your station ID and key. If sharing your data with those networks matters to you, our walkthrough on sending station data to Weather Underground and CWOP covers the options for every setup.

For a broader look at all the options, see Best Weather Station Software for a Personal Website. If you are coming from the self-hosted world and wonder whether a hosted service is powerful enough, Pro Weather has a 14-day free trial so you can see for yourself.