# Backblaze B2 vs Box API + MCP

> Backblaze B2 has a score of 75.4 (BB) against Box API + MCP's 69.6 (B). Both do storage share. The largest gap is security & auth, 17 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Backblaze B2 has a score of 75.4 (BB) against Box API + MCP's 69.6 (B). Both do storage share. The largest gap is security & auth, 17 points.

- Backblaze B2: grade BB, 75.4/100, rank #35 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/backblaze-b2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/backblaze-b2.json
- Box API + MCP: grade B, 69.6/100, rank #109 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/box-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/box-api.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Backblaze B2 for agent ergonomics (+13), security & auth (+17), payments & pricing (+15), maintenance & community (+6).

Pick Box API + MCP for reliability (+5), transparency & trust (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Backblaze B2 | Box API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 65 | Box API + MCP +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 91 | Box API + MCP +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 72 | Backblaze B2 +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 90 | 73 | Backblaze B2 +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 25 | Backblaze B2 +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 84 | Backblaze B2 +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 79 | Box API + MCP +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.4 · BB** | **69.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Backblaze B2 | Box API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Backblaze | Box |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://s3.us-west-004.backblazeb2.com` | `https://api.box.com/2.0` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 40 | 57 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.backblaze-labs/b2-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-11 |
| Popularity | 1 stars, 150 npm/wk, 112k PyPI/wk | 199 stars, 216k npm/wk, 276k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.8/5 (8) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Backblaze B2.** $6.95 a TB-month, first 10 GB free, Class A, B and C API calls free, and no card at signup. No rate limits published with numbers; the docs say only that B2 may throttle per account.

**Box API + MCP.** Public OpenAPI 3.0 spec with 297 operations, year-based API versions and an llms.txt of Markdown pages. 20 status-feed entries between 7 July and 1 October 2026, two of them over two hours on uploads or multiple services.

## Before you call either

### Backblaze B2

1. Take the region from the key's S3 endpoint (the second label of s3.<region>.backblazeb2.com) and pass it as the SDK region
2. Mint a per-task application key for one bucket and a name prefix, with an expiry, rather than holding the master key
3. Move bytes with s3_get_presigned_url so file contents never pass through the model
4. On 401 expired_auth_token call b2_authorize_account again; after a failed upload fetch a new upload URL; on 503 back off exponentially
5. Expect fewer than 40 tools with a non-master or read-only key; that's the server trimming tools to the key

### Box API + MCP

1. Call who_am_i first; the tool list depends on the plan, the admin's toggles and the scopes granted
2. Expect download and upload URL, move and shared-link tools to be missing unless an admin has enabled them
3. Pass fields= to trim responses and page folder listings with limit and marker
4. Send a box-version header to pin an API version, and watch responses for a Deprecation header
5. For a link that expires, set shared_link.unshared_at on a paid account; the free plan can't

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