WeatherLink.com vs Pro Weather: Free vs Pro

Every Davis weather station owner already has a place to see their data online: weatherlink.com. It is free, it works out of the box, and it shows your live conditions with no setup required. So why would anyone pay for a weather website?

The short answer is that WeatherLink.com and Pro Weather serve different expectations. WeatherLink.com gives you a functional dashboard. Pro Weather gives you a professional, customizable website that is unmistakably yours. This post explains the differences so you can decide which fits what you want.

What does the free WeatherLink.com page give you?

The free WeatherLink.com account shows live conditions, basic charts, and a forecast at a weatherlink.com URL you can share with anyone. What it lacks: any design control, your own domain, long-term history on the Basic plan, and extras like wind roses, severe-weather warnings, or multi-language support.

It is a solid starting point, but here is what it does not give you:

• Your own design. The layout is fixed. You cannot change the colors, fonts, header, or branding.
• Your own domain. Your page lives at a weatherlink.com subdirectory, not a domain you control.
• Long-term history on the free plan. The free Basic tier only keeps recent data. Older observations roll off as it retains only the most recent records.
• A mobile-optimized experience. The WeatherLink interface works on a phone but was designed for larger screens.
• Additional features. There are no wind roses, no air quality dashboards (beyond the raw number), no severe weather alerts, no astronomy panel, and no multi-language support.

WeatherLink's paid Pro and Pro+ plans add history and faster upload intervals, but they still lock you into the same fixed design and domain. For exactly what each tier keeps and costs, see WeatherLink Basic vs Pro vs Pro+.

What does Pro Weather add?

Pro Weather reads the same WeatherLink data through a free v2 API key and presents it as a standalone website: your own domain and branding, permanent history, an interactive wind rose, air quality and astronomy panels, severe-weather warnings, email alerts, and a site that speaks four languages.

• Your own design. Upload your logo, choose your banner, pick your colors and fonts, enable dark mode, and arrange the page layout to your liking.
• Your own domain. Use a subdomain like yours.pro-weather.com or connect a custom domain with automatic SSL. It looks like a real website, not a dashboard on someone else's platform.
• Permanent data storage. Your observations are stored forever. Charts, records, and the almanac build continuously and never reset.
• Built for mobile. Every site is responsive and designed from the ground up for phone screens.
• Wind rose. An interactive wind direction frequency chart built from every tick of your anemometer.
• Air quality panel. Full support for Davis AirLink sensors, with both EAQI and US EPA AQI standards.
• Severe weather alerts. Official warnings from the US National Weather Service and MeteoAlarm for Europe.
• Astronomy panel. Sunrise, sunset, moon phase, day length, and twilight times.
• Multi-language. Your site can display in English, Dutch, French, or German.
• Email alerts. Edge-triggered notifications for temperature, wind gusts, rain rate, and PM2.5 thresholds.

Side by side

When should you stick with WeatherLink.com?

Stick with WeatherLink.com if you just want a place to check your data from another room and occasionally share a raw link with a friend. It is free, it already works, and if design, history depth, and extra features do not matter to you, you do not need anything else.

When is Pro Weather worth it?

Pro Weather is worth it when you want your station to be a real website rather than a page inside someone else's platform: your own domain, permanent records, a professional design, and features WeatherLink does not offer. If any of these sound like you, it is a fit:

• You want a real website for your weather station, not a dashboard on someone else's domain.
• You care about long-term records and want your all-time highs, lows, and totals to keep building.
• You want your site to look professional with your own logo, colors, and a clean, mobile-friendly design.
• You want features like a wind rose, air quality dashboard, severe weather alerts, or astronomy data.
• You want your site to stay online without maintaining anything.

Common questions

Do I still need my WeatherLink account?

Yes. Pro Weather does not replace WeatherLink's upload pipeline — your station keeps reporting to your weatherlink.com account exactly as it does today, and Pro Weather reads that account through a free, read-only v2 API key. Keep the account active; it is the source of everything your site shows.

Does Pro Weather replace the WeatherLink app?

No, it complements it. The WeatherLink mobile app remains the place to configure your station and glance at your data privately. Pro Weather is the public, shareable face of the same station: a real website with your branding, permanent history, and features the app does not have.

Does Pro Weather work on the free WeatherLink Basic plan?

Yes. On Basic, your station reports current conditions roughly every 15 minutes and offers no historic data through the API, so Pro Weather builds your history forward from the day you connect. A paid Pro or Pro+ plan adds finer upload intervals, but the free tier is enough for a complete live site.

What hardware do I need?

Any Davis station that uploads to weatherlink.com will work — it does not matter whether the data travels through a WeatherLink Live, the WeatherLink Console, or a classic data logger. If you are weighing those upload options, see WeatherLink Live vs Console vs data logger.

WeatherLink.com is what Davis gives you. Pro Weather is what you build when you want your station to have a real home on the web. Start your site and see the difference in about five minutes.