Pro WeatherWeatherLink.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, customisable website that is unmistakably yours. This post explains the differences so you can decide which fits what you want.
What WeatherLink.com gives you
Your free WeatherLink.com account is a solid starting point. It shows current conditions, basic charts, and a forecast. You can share a link with anyone and they will see your live data.
What it does not give you:
- Your own design. The layout is fixed. You cannot change the colours, 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-optimised 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.
What Pro Weather adds
Pro Weather connects to the same WeatherLink account and uses the same data, but presents it as a fully customisable, standalone website.
- Your own design. Upload your logo, choose your banner, pick your colours 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
| Feature | WeatherLink.com (free) | Pro Weather |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Already works | About 5 minutes |
| Your own domain | No | Yes, with auto-SSL |
| Custom design | Fixed layout | Full branding, colours, layout |
| Data retention | Recent only (free) | Forever |
| Weather history charts | Basic | 24h, 7d, 30d, 90d, 1 year |
| Wind rose | No | Yes, interactive |
| Air quality | Raw number only | Full AQI dashboard |
| Severe weather alerts | No | NWS and MeteoAlarm |
| Astronomy | No | Sun, moon, twilight |
| Multi-language | No | EN, NL, FR, DE |
| Email alerts | No | Configurable thresholds |
| Mobile design | Desktop adapted | Phone-first responsive |
| Cost | Free | €5.99/month or €59/year |
When to stick with WeatherLink.com
If you just want a place to check your data from another room and share a raw link with a friend, WeatherLink.com is fine. It is free and it works. You do not need anything else.
When to upgrade to Pro Weather
You should consider Pro Weather if any of these sound like you:
- 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, colours, 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.
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.