Brolly
The most recommended of 14 weather apps
Plain-text weather site that people like for being simple, compact and easy to read. Critics most often say it lacks visual weather cues and has location lookup problems.
Plain-text weather site that people like for being simple, compact and easy to read. Critics most often say it lacks visual weather cues and has location lookup problems.
35 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 28
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 28 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple, compact text interface
“Love the simple text interface.”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “I appreciate how compact it is”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “great work. keep it simple.”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” - Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site”
- Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site”
Pleasant and easy to use
“This is really pleasing to use, lovely work”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “Really love this website and its awesome, thanks for making this!”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “I think when people get a hold of Brolly, they're going to love it immediately”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” - Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site”
Bookmarked by users
“Very cool, and bookmarked. And spot on for the HN crowd, I think.”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “I like it a lot and I have it saved to my weather bookmarks.”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” Digestible for LLMs and agents
“Structured, concise weather information without unnecessary UI noise is much easier for agents to parse and summarize.”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “this being text-based makes it particularly digestible to LLMs”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Location search and lookup problems
“didn't find very much - not sure if I'm missing how they're indexed, but I'd expect at least one of those to find it”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “Similarly, "Orlando" returns a bunch of results but "Orlando FL" returns none.”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” “Searching for and clicking on Sheringham gives a 400 error.”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site” - Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site”
Other weather apps people recommend
The four most recommended other weather apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BrollyThis page | 28 | 7 | 80% | 1 | — | — |
| Sundial weather app | 22 | 1 | 96% | 3 | — | — |
| Apple Weather | 20 | 54 | 27% | 6 | — | — |
| Acme Weather | 17 | 13 | 57% | 2 | — | — |
| Yr | 12 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | Approved |
What people said
33 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“way less intuitive than how your tool shows this info”
“Looks great! One suggestion, please consider adding a dark mode option”
“It's great to see that there's still a use for plain-text weather!”
“So glad that you've made this. Seems that sunrise/sunset are missing”
“I think you may be able just drop the precipitation chance.”
“I greatly appreciate getting to see the past few days' history for my location”
“It gets my location totally wrong”
“This is really pleasing to use, lovely work”
“thank you for bringing another TUI into the world!”
“the time of the report under the date was a little confusing”
“This is really cool, and I love the name”
“Similarly, "Orlando" returns a bunch of results but "Orlando FL" returns none.”
“Very cool, and bookmarked. And spot on for the HN crowd, I think.”
“I think it would more user (and SEO) friendly to have at least the place names in the URL”
“Searching for and clicking on Sheringham gives a 400 error.”
“didn't find very much - not sure if I'm missing how they're indexed, but I'd expect at least one of those to find it”
“I like it a lot and I have it saved to my weather bookmarks.”
“Love the simple text interface.”
“Structured, concise weather information without unnecessary UI noise is much easier for agents to parse and summarize.”
“this being text-based makes it particularly digestible to LLMs”
“the sites that do are a headache (and sometimes entirely unusable) if using a VPN”
“I think when people get a hold of Brolly, they're going to love it immediately”
“great work. keep it simple.”
“It's sort of okay (but not amazing) with”
“Would be nice to have a visual indication of rain/sun/cloudy etc”
“Really love this website and its awesome, thanks for making this!”
“this takes a few seconds to load on a fast broadband connection for me”
“One thing that initially tripped me up”
“it works much better on mobile”
“This is how the web used to feel.”
“I appreciate how compact it is”
“Don't think it's 'true' plain text. HTML/CSS rendering 'like' plain text.”
“It is not beautiful for me on Mobile”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.