# Backblaze B2 vs Dropbox API + MCP

> Backblaze B2 has a score of 75.4 (BB) against Dropbox API + MCP's 68.2 (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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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Backblaze B2 has a score of 75.4 (BB) against Dropbox API + MCP's 68.2 (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
- Dropbox API + MCP: grade B, 68.2/100, rank #129 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dropbox-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/dropbox-api.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Backblaze B2 for reliability (+8), agent ergonomics (+8), security & auth (+17), payments & pricing (+5), transparency & trust (+11).

Pick Dropbox API + MCP for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Backblaze B2 | Dropbox API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 52 | Backblaze B2 +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 91 | Dropbox API + MCP +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 77 | Backblaze B2 +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 90 | 73 | Backblaze B2 +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | Backblaze B2 +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 90 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 63 | Backblaze B2 +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.4 · BB** | **68.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Backblaze B2 | Dropbox API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Backblaze | Dropbox |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://s3.us-west-004.backblazeb2.com` | `https://api.dropboxapi.com/2` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 40 | 25 |
| 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 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | 1 stars, 150 npm/wk, 112k PyPI/wk | 980 stars, 282k npm/wk, 398k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.8/5 (8) | 3/5 (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.

**Dropbox API + MCP.** Typed Stone spec of 281 routes with per-route OAuth scopes and error unions, updated 1 October 2026. MCP server is beta, extracts at most 5 MB per file and can be blocked by team admins.

## 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

### Dropbox API + MCP

1. Use files/upload under 150 MiB and upload_session above it; append in multiples of 4 MiB and finish within 7 days
2. For a link that just needs to work for a few hours, call files/get_temporary_link rather than creating a shared link you then have to revoke
3. Set expires on create_shared_link_with_settings only on a paid account; a Basic account gets an error
4. Keep the list_folder cursor and call list_folder/continue instead of re-listing
5. On a rate-limit error wait retry_after seconds; too_many_write_operations means write contention, so serialise writes

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