In this article, five Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and four Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-based Adriaticfocused satellite sea surface temperature (SST) products are analysed and compared with two sets of in situ SST measurements: a drifter-based dataset collected in 2003, and a platform-based dataset gathered in 2004 ; an additional set was used to validate the new SST coefficients. Analysis of satellite minus in situ SST residuals shows similar results for both in situ datasets, with the differences being within 0.2 K. All daytime SST biases exhibited positive values (less than 0.5 K). Night-time biases for short-wave infrared (IR) algorithms exhibited near zero and small negative values with an exceptionally low standard deviation (about 0.3 K) regardless of the sensor used. Analysis of filtered residual time-series allowed direct comparison between different SST products. The seasonal change in the daytime biases was found to covary with similar changes in atmospheric water vapour and the Adriatic specific wind regime.