The data comes from a free API that is not associated with ESRI, so it won't cost any credits. Generally speaking, it's a pretty good widget, but it does have some bugs.
You may want to poke around ArcGIS Online for a bit to see if you can find radar posted by your country's weather service as many countries have this available as a free service. In the USA, you can find such a layer here.
https://mapservices.weather.noaa.gov/eventdriven/rest/services/radar/radar_base_reflectivity_time/Im...
It updates more frequently than the service this widget uses and contains time enabled data, so it should be possible to use with the Timeline Widget. So it would be a good alternative, if you don't want to deal with this widget's issues.
GIS Developer
City of Arlington, Texas