Comparison

widget weather vs Backyard Weather

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

widget weather

This app offers a highly customizable weather widget and application for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Personalize symbols, detail levels, fonts, and backgrounds. It provides two forecast services and saves data locally for offline access.

Highlights
  • Customizable weather widget
  • Animated weather symbols
  • Two forecast services
  • Offline forecast data
  • Apple Watch support
  • Touch responsive meteogram
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Even bad weather can be forecasted beautifully! Works on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac! -"I have tried every widget and this is by far the best. The pixelated weather animations are very cool. It has a ton of options and I like how you can double tap the widget to refresh the info." (New type widget does not support double tapping) -"Maybe the best weather widget on the appstore." -"It's simple, beautiful and does what it says." -"LOVE THIS! Best weather app I've used so far!" -“The app is great, I only ask that the application, on the iPad, can be viewed in landscape. Attach 5 Stars, but, when the landscape is ready, become 7 Stars. Congratulations!” (iPad now supports landscape mode) widget weather is a highly customizable weather app with widgets. Pick your favorite weather symbols, detail level, font and background color. There are even two weather forecast services so pick the most accurate one for your location. On Apple Watch you can use swipe up/down or use the digital crown to travel through time on the current weather page. Tap the screen to go back to current weather. Feature list: -Touch responsive meteogram -Two forecast styles: list and graph (meteogram) -Customizable widgets -Separate locations for widgets -Apple Watch support -20 beautiful weather icon sets -2 animated weather symbol sets -Customizable background -Customizable detail level (rain/wind/units etc.) -Font picker -Forecast for map locations and GPS position -Two forecast services: openweathermap.org and met.no -Choose how often new forecast data should be downloaded -Weather forecast in 49 languages -Universal for iPhone and iPad and the iPad version can be installed on Mac and gives you weather widgets on your desktop Usage tips: -Touch and drag graph or tap list to show forecast details -You can force update a location manually by double clicking the screen in the app -To change the location for a widget: Long press a widget and choose “Edit widget”, then choose from a list of your locations. Add more locations from within the app before selecting them in a widget ### Weather forecast from met.no available in: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Weather forecast from openweathermap.org available in: English, Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Zulu. App menus in English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

About

Backyard Weather

Monitor personal weather stations, aviation weather, and coastal conditions. View current readings, historical charts for up to 11 metrics, and customize units. Offers widgets and a watch app for convenient access to weather data.

Highlights
  • Personal weather station monitoring
  • Aviation weather (METAR)
  • Coastal conditions (NOAA tides)
  • Current conditions and historical charts
  • Customizable units and display
  • Widgets and watch app support
Features
Read full description

**Personal Weather Station & Aviation Weather** Connect a PWS via Weather Underground, monitor aviation weather from any METAR airport, or track tides and coastal conditions from NOAA CO-OPS stations. **Three station types** • PWS — personal weather stations via Weather Underground • METAR — airport observations, updated every few minutes at most US airports • NOAA — tide gauges and coastal stations **Current conditions** Live readings with charts underneath, plus the record high, record low and average for today's date from your station's full archive. Up to 12 metrics depending on station type: temperature, feels like, humidity, wind, dew point, pressure, precipitation, UV, solar radiation, visibility, water temperature, and water level/tide. **Rich history charts** 1-day and 7-day charts you can drag to read exact values, times and wind direction. US airport stations fill in between the hourly reports, so today's line is a curve rather than 24 steps. **Alerts** Get notified when your station crosses a value you choose — a freeze, a gust, an inch of rain — or when it stops reporting altogether. Pressure drops, temperature swings and wind shifts are built in as ready-made rules. **Customisable units & display** 12- or 24-hour time, metric or imperial, and precision options for every number. **Color themes** Nine palettes for your charts and calendars. Preview any of them across every metric before you decide. **Widgets (Supporter)** Graph widgets for any metric over 1 or 7 days, a single-metric widget for one big number, a year-at-a-glance calendar, long-range history charts, a records widget, and Lock Screen complications. **Watch app (Supporter)** Temperature, feels like, humidity, wind, pressure and precipitation as watch complications, with every current metric and its graph in the app itself. **History & Records (Supporter)** Daily detail for any year your station has recorded — airports often reach back decades — plus all-time records, a record high and low for every calendar day, and yearly trends that overlay up to ten years on one chart. Free includes current conditions, 1-day and 7-day charts, one month of history, one alert per station, and three colour themes. Note: a Weather Underground API key is required for PWS stations. METAR and NOAA stations are free and need no API key. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

widget weather4 screens
Backyard Weather4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Backyard Weather at Free against widget weather's $3.99. Backyard Weather also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7). widget weather's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (73 vs 2). On update cadence, ads, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Backyard Weather is free to download; widget weather costs $3.99 up front. Backyard Weather sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $14.99 per year. widget weather asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Backyard Weather holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: widget weather has 73 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

widget weather ships an update every 6 weeks, Backyard Weather every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
widget weather versus Backyard Weather: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameterwidget weatherBackyard Weather
Price$3.99Free — better
Rating4.7 (73 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.9% of reviews—
Number of ratings73 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
Best chart rank#52 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size60 MB21 MB
Age rating4++4
DeveloperTrond RossvollSamuel Albrecht

Customer experience

widget weather

All ratings73 ratings
Positive94.5%
Neutral1.4%
Negative4.1%
Written reviews122 reviews
Positive68.9%
Neutral11.5%
Negative19.7%

Backyard Weather

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

widget weather

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Backyard Weather

Subscriptions1
  • Backyard Weather Pro1 Month trial$14.991 Year

Questions

Is widget weather free?
widget weather costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Backyard Weather free?
Backyard Weather is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, widget weather or Backyard Weather?
Backyard Weather is rated higher. widget weather averages 4.7 out of 5 from 73 ratings, while Backyard Weather averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do widget weather or Backyard Weather have ads?
Neither widget weather nor Backyard Weather shows ads.
Which is updated more often, widget weather or Backyard Weather?
widget weather ships an update every 6 weeks, and Backyard Weather every 3 weeks. Most recently, widget weather was updated on November 6, 2026 and Backyard Weather on October 31, 2026.

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