People who search for a "CARROT Weather alternative" usually want one of two things. Some like what a good third-party weather app can do but would rather not pay for it every year. Others want better rain warnings than the built-in app gives them, without a stack of add-ons.
CARROT Weather and Cloudmesh Weather both go well beyond Apple's own Weather app, but they are built on different ideas. CARROT is a mature, award-winning app with a famous personality and a tiered subscription. Cloudmesh is a younger app that runs its own blended forecast and sells Premium as a single purchase. This comparison covers what each does well, where each falls short and what each really costs, based on the App Store listings in September 2026.
A note on bias: Cloudmesh Weather is made by us, Blue Flame Games. We have tried to be straight about CARROT's strengths and about Cloudmesh's gaps. Prices are the US dollar prices on CARROT's App Store listing; local prices vary and can change.
CARROT's signature is its personality. You can choose from five personalities, from a straight, professional forecaster to an "overkill" mode that delivers the weather with dark humour and plenty of attitude. If you enjoy it, checking the weather becomes fun; if you don't, set it to professional.
CARROT has been named an Apple App of the Year and has won an Apple Design Award, and it has a long track record of steady updates. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro.
For people who like to tinker, CARROT is hard to beat. Premium unlocks full customisation of the interface, so you decide which data appears and where. It also lets you choose where your forecast comes from, including The Weather Channel, AccuWeather and Apple Weather. That matters, because providers perform differently from region to region.
Premium also brings Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, Live Activities, weather maps, Apple Watch complications with background updates, and notifications for precipitation, weather alerts and, where available, lightning. The Ultra tier adds dedicated rain, lightning and storm-cell notifications, super-resolution radar, a weather maps widget, a CarPlay app, multi-model forecasts and quick switching between data sources.
CARROT is a free download, but most of what people install it for sits behind a subscription. As listed on the App Store:
There is also a lighter Premium Mini tier. The key point when comparing apps: in CARROT, widgets, notifications and Watch complications all need at least Premium, and the most detailed rain alerts are in Ultra.
Cloudmesh Weather starts from a narrower question: when exactly will it rain where I am, and how sure is the forecast? It tells you when rain will start and stop at your location, down to the minute, and can notify you before it arrives, with quiet hours and per-city control. Rain alerts are free, and so are severe weather, pressure-change and temperature alerts. The detailed minute-by-minute rain chart for the next hour is part of Premium.
Rather than passing through a single provider's forecast, Cloudmesh runs its own. It blends 39 weather sources, including radar, national observation networks from about 30 countries and several forecast models, into one hyperlocal forecast, and a confidence ribbon shows when the models agree and when they don't.
A live radar layer follows your selected city and is part of the free tier. There is an air quality now-cast, the UV index, and an allergy card that estimates pollen and mould risk from the weather (a risk estimate, not a pollen count).
There are 24 Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, from an umbrella prompt and hourly forecast to commute, moon phase, air quality, running and what to wear. Inside the app, around 30 activity cards (cycling, sailing, skiing, golf, fishing, stargazing, gardening, laundry, tides and more) can be added and reordered, so the main screen reflects what you actually do.
On Apple Watch, one screen shows the temperature, whether rain is coming and when it stops, alongside an animated Cloud Buddy whose mood follows the weather: an umbrella when rain is minutes away, a rainbow when it is about to clear, earmuffs in the cold. Complications put the same information on your watch face.
Premium adds a route planner that can suggest a detour around rain, the minute-by-minute rain chart and alternative watch buddies. Earthquake alerts come from public seismic feeds, and Premium users can try an experimental detection method, still in beta, that uses an opt-in community barometer mesh: phones share anonymous pressure readings with no account or device ID, coarsened coordinates and jittered timing. We explain the idea in how community weather networks work. On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, there is also a short plain-language summary of the day, written on the device.
The free tier covers current conditions, hourly and 10-day forecasts, radar, alerts, a set of widgets and cards, and up to two cities. Premium comes with a 7-day free trial and is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. There is no account, no ads and no third-party analytics or tracking, and the app speaks English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Hindi.
The honest limitations: Cloudmesh has no personality mode and no CarPlay app. You can't switch forecast providers; everyone gets the Cloudmesh blend. And it is a newer, smaller app than CARROT, without its long track record and awards.
| Feature | CARROT Weather | Cloudmesh Weather |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free download; Premium US$4.99/month or US$19.99/year; Ultra up to US$39.99/year; Family US$59.99/year | Free tier; 7-day Premium trial; Premium is a one-time purchase |
| Rain alerts | Precipitation notifications with Premium; rain, lightning and storm-cell notifications with Ultra | Alert before rain starts, free, plus severe weather, pressure and temperature alerts; minute-by-minute rain chart with Premium |
| Radar and maps | Weather maps with Premium; super-res radar with Ultra | Live radar that follows your city, free |
| Widgets | Home and Lock Screen widgets with Premium; maps widget with Ultra | 24 Home and Lock Screen widgets (a set free), plus about 30 in-app activity cards |
| Apple Watch | Watch app; complications and background updates with Premium | Watch app with animated Cloud Buddy, plus complications |
| Data sources | Choose a provider, including The Weather Channel, AccuWeather and Apple Weather (Premium); multi-model forecasts with Ultra | Its own blend of 39 sources with a confidence ribbon; no provider switching |
| Personality | Five personalities, from professional to "overkill" | None; plain presentation |
| CarPlay | Yes, with Ultra | No |
| Account | No account needed | No account |
| Privacy summary | Purchases, location, identifiers and usage data collected, not linked to your identity; location never sold | No ads or third-party tracking; forecasts use a coarsened location; alert locations kept briefly and stored in Europe; never sold |
Both apps need your location to give you a forecast, so the useful question is what happens to it afterwards. CARROT's App Store privacy label lists purchases, location, identifiers and usage data as collected, with none of it linked to your identity, and the developer says location data is never sold.
Cloudmesh is not an "everything stays on your phone" app either, and we would rather say so plainly. Forecasts come from Cloudmesh's own forecast service, which receives a coarsened version of your location. If you turn on rain alerts, the service has to know where you are in order to warn you: it keeps a precise location for at most six hours, then only an approximate area of about 10 km for up to 30 days, and removes it when you turn all alerts off. Nothing is tied to an identity, because there is no account, and the data is stored in Europe.
Both approaches are reasonable. Cloudmesh has no account, ads or third-party analytics; CARROT publishes a clear label and keeps what it collects unlinked from you.
Subscriptions are easy to underestimate, so here is the plain arithmetic using the listed US prices:
A subscription does pay for ongoing data costs and development, and CARROT has kept adding features for years. If you use its personality or customisation every day, the yearly Premium price is fair. If you mainly want dependable rain alerts, widgets and a Watch app, check which of those you would be paying for every year.
Apple Weather is built in and free, with next-hour precipitation in supported regions, a 10-day forecast, air quality, maps, severe weather alerts and widgets. (Apple bought Dark Sky in 2020, and the Dark Sky app shut down on 1 January 2023.)
Acme Weather, from the creators of Dark Sky, shows alternate predictions so you can judge how reliable a forecast is, plus notifications, community reports and maps. It is free for two weeks, then US$25 a year (US$50 for a family), and says it doesn't store location history or use third-party tracking.
In the UK, the Met Office and BBC Weather apps are strong free choices too. We compare them in Best Weather Apps for the UK in 2026: Rain, Radar and Warnings Compared.
Choose CARROT Weather if you enjoy its personality, want to shape the interface exactly to your liking, or want to pick your forecast provider and compare models. It is also the one for weather in CarPlay (with Ultra) or on Vision Pro. If a yearly subscription for a proven app suits you, it is an easy recommendation.
Choose Cloudmesh Weather if rain timing matters most and you want rain alerts without paying for them, if you like a forecast that tells you how confident it is, or if you want plenty of widgets, a friendly Watch app and a one-time price with no account, ads or tracking. Go in knowing that it is newer and smaller than CARROT, has no personality mode or CarPlay app, and doesn't let you switch forecast providers.
Yes. Widgets from different apps sit side by side on the Home Screen, so you could keep CARROT for its personality and customisation while using Cloudmesh's free rain alerts and widgets. Two apps alerting for the same place will double up, so pick one for notifications. Because Cloudmesh has a free tier, you can try this without adding a second subscription.
CARROT Weather is a polished, award-winning app with real personality and deep customisation. Cloudmesh Weather is the newer, quieter option: its own blended forecast with a confidence ribbon, free alerts before rain reaches you, 24 widgets and a Watch app, with Premium sold once rather than every year. If you want a CARROT Weather alternative without a subscription, try Cloudmesh's free tier and see whether it covers what you need.