If you use the official Weather app for Windows, you may have noticed that it is quite hungry when it comes to memory. The app uses between 500 and 600 megabytes right when you open it.
This goes down a bit when it is in the background and up again when you use it actively. Some features, like the weather radar, may shot up RAM usage to 1 gigabyte or more.
Still, even at idle, using hundreds of megabytes of RAM suggests that the app is anything but optimized.
Windows users who want a weather app but prefer one that does not use as much RAM, may want to look at third-party solutions that offer just that and often much more.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Fluent Weather: uses less than 60 megabytes, is open source, has no ads or tracking, lacks some of the advanced features, such as the weather radar or adding locations to the favorites.
- Skyline Weather: open source Windows store app, supports multiple locations, uses about 50 megabytes.
- TrayWeather: open source app, displays weather information in the system tray, less than 30 megabytes of RAM usage.
- WeatherWidget: another standalone open source app that displays weather information for up to five locations. Less than 30 megabytes of RAM usage.
While all lack some of the advanced features of the native Windows app, all use a fraction of the RAM of the official app.