A Free Surfline Alternative
Full 7-day forecasts, buoys, tides, and cams. No account, no ads, no paywall.
If you landed here, you're probably looking for a surf forecast that doesn't cap your surf checks, lock cameras behind a subscription, or make you create an account to see tomorrow's swell. That's exactly why Free Surf Forecast exists: every feature is free, for every visitor, with no sign-up — the way MagicSeaweed used to work.
Side by Side
| Free Surf Forecast | Surfline | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, everything included | Free tier with limits; Premium subscription (roughly $120/year as of 2026) for full access |
| Account required | No | Yes, for most features |
| Ads | None | On the free tier |
| Forecast length | 7 days, hourly | 16+ days with Premium |
| Forecast source | NOAA GFS-Wave / WaveWatch III, Open-Meteo fallback — methodology fully open source | Proprietary LOTUS model plus human forecasters |
| Buoy data | NDBC + CDIP real-time observations and wave spectra | Included |
| Tides | NOAA CO-OPS, 7-day, on the wave chart | Included |
| Surf cameras | Free where public cams exist (Windy, SurfChex, and others) | Largest cam network, but Premium-only without ads and rewind |
| Spot coverage | 145 US spots with their own pages (East and West Coasts, Gulf, Great Lakes, Hawaii, Puerto Rico), plus an on-demand forecast for any coordinate on the map | Thousands of spots worldwide |
| Session planning | Scored 3-hour windows by skill level, calendar export | Premium forecast tools |
| Open source | Yes, entire codebase on GitHub | No |
If Your Break Isn't on the List
Surfline is a catalogue: a break is either in it or it isn't, and if yours isn't, there is nothing to open. This site works differently. The 145 spots on our locations list have their own pages, but the forecast is not tied to them — open the location picker, click anywhere on the map, and you get the same 7-day wave height, period, swell direction, and wind forecast for that coordinate, along with any live cams nearby. That works on any coastline, not just the US.
Two things do not travel. Tide predictions come from NOAA CO-OPS and buoy observations from NDBC and CDIP, so both are US-only. Surf abroad and you get waves, wind, and cams without a tide curve or buoy readings.
What You Give Up
Honesty matters more than a sales pitch. Surfline has the largest surf camera network in the world, human forecasters writing regional analysis, a proprietary wave model tuned per spot, and a worldwide catalogue of named breaks with local knowledge attached to each one. If you need cams at a specific break we don't cover, or 16-day outlooks for a surf trip abroad, Surfline Premium earns its price.
What You Get
- The same government wave models professionals start from — NOAA GFS-Wave, WaveWatch III — presented raw, with transparent scoring on top
- Real-time NDBC and CDIP buoy observations, including wave energy spectra
- Swell-direction-aware spot scoring that accounts for each beach's facing direction
- A session planner that scores every daylight 3-hour window for your skill level
- Live swell maps: ocean-basin overview plus local wave height, period, and wind grids
- Push alerts when conditions at your spot turn good — no email address required
- An installable app (PWA) that works on your phone's home screen
No account. No limit on how many times you check it. If it saves you a skunked session, it did its job.