End of Meteotemplate
Posted: Sun May 17, 2026 10:39 am
I guess all good things must end sometime.
https://www.meteotemplate.com
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic ... #msg500232
Dear users,
It’s been fascinating 13 years, but unfortunately, everything comes to an end eventually.
When I started developing Meteotemplate in 2013, I had plenty of free time—I was studying at university—and for me, it was partly a way to learn programming and have some fun. However, the situation has changed significantly since then. I have a great job that I enjoy at the Czech national meteorological organization, but it’s very time-consuming. At the same time, I met my wife, and since August 2025, our son is keeping us busy as well.
I haven’t had time to work on Meteotemplate for the past few years—I’ll be honest about that. I’ve told myself several times that I need to get back to it, but it never worked out, for a few reasons. The main one was that I simply couldn’t find the time, and that’s related to the second reason. Meteotemplate really taught me a lot. Today, I work on a lot of web applications as part of my job, and when I look at the Meteotemplate code, I know that if I wanted to bring it up to a standard I’d be satisfied with, it would require a complete rewrite of the entire code—both because I was a beginner when I created it and didn’t choose the optimal approach, and because the world of websites has changed so drastically. The site is now outdated, and even the backend isn’t well optimized. So I tried at least to respond to emails and handle support, which I usually managed to do—if I forgot to reply to someone, I apologize; it wasn’t intentional.
After my son was born, I started thinking about what to do with Meteotemplate. I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to create a new product for the community that I’d be satisfied with, because it would have to come at the expense of my work or my family. At the same time, though, it was a difficult decision, given that I had literally devoted thousands of hours to this project.
The internet today has changed not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of what’s freely available. Many blocks and plugins no longer work—back in 2015, when Meteotemplate first launched, there were plenty of free APIs. Today, however, the trend is exactly the opposite. Everything is handled through subscriptions, and only a very limited amount of data is still free. This is also related to the final factor that ultimately forced me to end this project.
The entire Meteotemplate is built on charts and statistics. For the charts, I chose the Highcharts library, which was and still is, in my opinion, the best charting library out there. Unfortunately, its licensing has also changed, and last week I received an email stating that it is no longer possible to offer Highcharts for free within Meteotemplate in its current form. If I wanted the appropriate license, it would cost orders of magnitude more than the project’s revenue via donations. There are free alternatives to Highcharts, but that would mean completely rewriting the code.
I have therefore decided to discontinue the Meteotemplate project. This is due to licensing issues, the fact that I am a perfectionist and am simply no longer satisfied with the product, and, unfortunately, I am unable to offer you anything better under the current circumstances—especially since it would have to be a completely new product. Due to licensing issues, I cannot simply stop development, freeze the site, and leave it available for download without further development or support.
This website will be taken down at the end of June 30, 2026 when the domain and webhosting expires. I will also keep the Forum available until this date for you to be able to copy anything important that is there.
In this context, I would like to mention one more important thing. Your sites run on your servers and through your databases, so this does not mean you will lose your sites. They will continue to function.
I’d like to thank all of you very much; it was a tremendous experience for me. I met many people from all over the world, and it felt great to know that thousands of users (in the end, there were approximately 8,500 of you) from around the globe found my product useful. Last but not least, I learned a lot from this, and it’s fair to say that thanks to this experience, I have the job and opportunities I have today.
If for any reason you’d like to contact me in the future, you can certainly reach me at jachym.brzezina@gmail.com.
Wish you all the best, and thank you once again for being part of this journey with me.
Jáchym
https://www.meteotemplate.com
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic ... #msg500232
Dear users,
It’s been fascinating 13 years, but unfortunately, everything comes to an end eventually.
When I started developing Meteotemplate in 2013, I had plenty of free time—I was studying at university—and for me, it was partly a way to learn programming and have some fun. However, the situation has changed significantly since then. I have a great job that I enjoy at the Czech national meteorological organization, but it’s very time-consuming. At the same time, I met my wife, and since August 2025, our son is keeping us busy as well.
I haven’t had time to work on Meteotemplate for the past few years—I’ll be honest about that. I’ve told myself several times that I need to get back to it, but it never worked out, for a few reasons. The main one was that I simply couldn’t find the time, and that’s related to the second reason. Meteotemplate really taught me a lot. Today, I work on a lot of web applications as part of my job, and when I look at the Meteotemplate code, I know that if I wanted to bring it up to a standard I’d be satisfied with, it would require a complete rewrite of the entire code—both because I was a beginner when I created it and didn’t choose the optimal approach, and because the world of websites has changed so drastically. The site is now outdated, and even the backend isn’t well optimized. So I tried at least to respond to emails and handle support, which I usually managed to do—if I forgot to reply to someone, I apologize; it wasn’t intentional.
After my son was born, I started thinking about what to do with Meteotemplate. I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to create a new product for the community that I’d be satisfied with, because it would have to come at the expense of my work or my family. At the same time, though, it was a difficult decision, given that I had literally devoted thousands of hours to this project.
The internet today has changed not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of what’s freely available. Many blocks and plugins no longer work—back in 2015, when Meteotemplate first launched, there were plenty of free APIs. Today, however, the trend is exactly the opposite. Everything is handled through subscriptions, and only a very limited amount of data is still free. This is also related to the final factor that ultimately forced me to end this project.
The entire Meteotemplate is built on charts and statistics. For the charts, I chose the Highcharts library, which was and still is, in my opinion, the best charting library out there. Unfortunately, its licensing has also changed, and last week I received an email stating that it is no longer possible to offer Highcharts for free within Meteotemplate in its current form. If I wanted the appropriate license, it would cost orders of magnitude more than the project’s revenue via donations. There are free alternatives to Highcharts, but that would mean completely rewriting the code.
I have therefore decided to discontinue the Meteotemplate project. This is due to licensing issues, the fact that I am a perfectionist and am simply no longer satisfied with the product, and, unfortunately, I am unable to offer you anything better under the current circumstances—especially since it would have to be a completely new product. Due to licensing issues, I cannot simply stop development, freeze the site, and leave it available for download without further development or support.
This website will be taken down at the end of June 30, 2026 when the domain and webhosting expires. I will also keep the Forum available until this date for you to be able to copy anything important that is there.
In this context, I would like to mention one more important thing. Your sites run on your servers and through your databases, so this does not mean you will lose your sites. They will continue to function.
I’d like to thank all of you very much; it was a tremendous experience for me. I met many people from all over the world, and it felt great to know that thousands of users (in the end, there were approximately 8,500 of you) from around the globe found my product useful. Last but not least, I learned a lot from this, and it’s fair to say that thanks to this experience, I have the job and opportunities I have today.
If for any reason you’d like to contact me in the future, you can certainly reach me at jachym.brzezina@gmail.com.
Wish you all the best, and thank you once again for being part of this journey with me.
Jáchym