Environment · head-to-head
IQAir vs National Grid ESO
IQAir's AirVisual API serves real-time and forecast air-quality and weather data for stations and cities worldwide. Its free Community plan covers up to 500 calls/day, with paid Startup ($399/mo) and Enterprise ($999/mo) tiers unlocking much higher volume.
This is Great Britain's electricity system operator's open-data portal, publishing generation mix, demand forecasts, and grid balancing datasets. The operator was transferred to public ownership and rebranded the National Energy System Operator (NESO) on 1 October 2024; the old data.nationalgrideso.com host no longer resolves at all, with the same CKAN data portal now living at neso.energy/data-portal. Its real CKAN gateway at api.neso.energy returns Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * on every response, resolving cors unknown -> yes.
| IQAir | National Grid ESO | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | API Key | None |
| Pricing | freemium | free |
| Formats | JSON | JSON, CSV |
| CORS | yes | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
National Grid ESO needs no API key, while IQAir requires API Key — pick National Grid ESO to start without signup.