# Windy Premium vs Free the Wind > What Windy sells as Premium, next to the same thing here for free: 10-day forecasts, hourly steps, ECMWF, route planning, offline. And where Windy wins. Page: https://www.freethewind.com/windy Windy charges for this. We don’t. ## The forecast itself How far it looks, how fine it steps, and how often it is redrawn. | Feature | Windy | Free the Wind | |---|---|---| | 10-day forecast | Premium: Free tier stops at about a week | Free: Every model here runs to day 10 — GFS, ECMWF and WeatherNext 3 alike — with a 10-day outlook of where they agree and where they split. | | 1-hour forecast steps | Premium: 3-hour steps on the free tier | Free: Hourly for the first 48 hours on GFS and WeatherNext 3, then 3-hourly to day 5. Scrub the timeline and the whole field redraws. | | Four model updates a day | Premium: Sold as “4+ daily updates” | Free: GFS and WeatherNext 3 land four times a day, ECMWF twice. Every run is stamped with when it was taken and when the next one is due. | | Higher-resolution maps | Premium: “More detailed forecast maps” | Free: WeatherNext 3 on a 0.1° grid — about 11 km — and every pixel is drawn on your device from the real numbers, never a pre-coloured picture. | ## The models Whose forecast it is. All of ours, all the time, with the run times on show. | Feature | Windy | Free the Wind | |---|---|---| | Google DeepMind WeatherNext 3 | Not offered: Not on Windy | Free: The AI model, trained on decades of reanalysis and run on a finer grid than the physics models. An independent second opinion, free. | | ECMWF | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: The European model, widely rated the most skilful global forecast. Days three to ten are its strength. | | NOAA GFS | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: The reference most marine forecasts are built on, with waves and rain beside the wind. | | Model comparison | Premium: The “better Compare Forecast” is Premium | Free: Every point on the map wears a pill that says whether the models agree, a chart of every model hour by hour, and the worst hour marked in knots apart. | | Where the forecast comes from | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: One tap on the “?” beside the model picker: the organisation, the method, the run you are looking at and when the next one lands. Nothing blended, nothing re-forecast. | ## Planning a passage The part of a weather app a sailor actually opens the night before. | Feature | Windy | Free the Wind | |---|---|---| | Offline weather | Not offered: Not on Windy anymore | Free: Download the forecast for your passage before the signal goes. The map, every model's numbers and the passage open with no connection, and the page says how old the run is. | | Route planner | Premium: Premium, and desktop only | Free: Drop waypoints, drag them, set your boat speed, and read the wind, gust and sea state along every leg. On your phone too. | | Departure planner | Not offered: Not on Windy | Free: The same passage every three hours, under every model, side by side — so “when should I leave” has a table instead of a hunch. | | Your own limits | Not offered: Not on Windy | Free: Set the wind and wave you are happy in. Every leg, every departure and every model is scored as time over YOUR limits — never a “go” we have no business saying. | | GPX in and out | Premium: Lives inside the Premium Route Planner | Free: Import the route from your plotter, export the one you drew back to it. Recorded tracks are simplified on the way in. | ## Sharing it A forecast nobody else can see is a forecast you will be explaining on the radio. | Feature | Windy | Free the Wind | |---|---|---| | Share a passage as a link | Premium: Route sharing sits with the Premium planner | Free: The whole route in one readable URL. Paste it in the group chat; whoever opens it gets the same passage, framed, with the forecast live. | | Share a passage as a video | Not offered: Not on Windy | Free: The Route studio records the passage as a clip with the wind moving under your boat, sized for Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp, with the caption written for you. | | Sharing on the web, no app needed | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: Every link opens in a browser. Nobody has to install anything to see what you are looking at. | ## The layers Fair is fair: Windy gives these away too. So do we. | Feature | Windy | Free the Wind | |---|---|---| | Live wind field | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: Particles moving with the wind, colour by speed, arrows on demand — drawn from the real vectors, so a tap anywhere reads the true number. | | Gusts | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: Their own layer, in knots, from the same run as the wind. | | Waves and swell | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: Significant height in metres or feet, with the sea state read along every route leg. | | Rain | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: From GFS and from WeatherNext 3, in millimetres or inches. | | Pressure, isobars and highs and lows | Free: Free on Windy too | Free: Isobars drawn on the client with the H and L centres marked, to day 5. | ## Fair is fair Windy is a superb product and it does things SeaPeople Weather does not. If you need those, you need Windy — and nothing on this page should talk you out of it. Windy’s column is taken from Windy’s own Premium announcements and product pages; tiers change, so check theirs for today’s. Windy is a trademark of its owner, and no affiliation is implied — we are sailors who think the wind should be free. Not for navigation. Comparison generated Oct. 1, 2026. --- Free the Wind — Premium marine weather by SeaPeople. Not for navigation. Publisher: [SeaPeople](https://seapeopleapp.com).