Backblaze B2 vs Google Cloud Storage

Backblaze B2 90

Status page at status.backblaze.com (20). The page renders with JavaScript, but its RSS feed (status.backblaze.com/data/rss.xml) is readable. On 1 November it holds 21 items back to 3 August 2026. Three unplanned incidents fall since the 17 October check. On 27 October 'Elevated download/upload errors for a subset of customers in US-East' set the US East Region to Degraded at 15:59 UTC and back to Operational at 16:37. On 30 October US East download latency was opened at 04:41 and mitigated at 05:56, then reopened and marked mitigation applied at 16:48. 'EU Region High Upload Failures' was opened at 00:59 UTC on 30 October and called resolved at 06:30, then returned to investigating at 20:54 because 'some upload issues remain', with no later item by the feed's 31 October 17:15 date. Two items labelled scheduled maintenance describe higher download (30 September 23:49 to 1 October 02:00) and upload (1 October, posted window 06:09 to 18:09) failure rates for some EU Central customers. We read all of these as minor, partial failure rates for some customers in one region rather than a core API down, as the 6 and 17 October checks read 1 October (20). Rate limits with numbers. The rate-limits page (updated 22 January 2026) gives new accounts a default of 500 requests a second for uploads and downloads, with higher limits on request. Earlier checks missed it (15). Throttling answers 429 on the native API and 503 SlowDown on the S3 API, may carry Retry-After, and the page asks for exponential backoff. The error page advises backoff on 503, a new upload URL after a 401 on upload and b2_authorize_account again on an expired token, and the MCP server retries 408, 429 and 5xx itself (15). SLA of 99.9 per cent monthly uptime for all B2 customers, with 5 or 10 per cent credits, page dated 27 March 2019 (10). GA (10).

Google Cloud Storage 80

Google Cloud's status dashboard with a per-product incident feed (20). In the 90 days from 8 August, Cloud Storage appears in a high-severity incident on 20 August across 27 products (about 3 hours 40 minutes of timeouts and errors), a medium incident on 8 to 9 October with elevated upload and write errors, and a medium regional incident in europe-west2 on 20 October. One major outage (10). The request-rate guide gives numbers, no ramp-up needed below 1,000 writes or 5,000 reads a second per bucket, with gradual ramping above (15). The retry strategy page lists retryable responses, idempotent operations and preconditions that make writes safe to retry, and the client libraries back off exponentially (15). SLA with monthly uptime of 99.95 per cent for multi-region Standard and 99.9 per cent regional (10). Generally available, and the MCP server since 20 April 2026 (10). 20 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 80.

Backblaze B2 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-TB storage and per-call prices public without a login (20). The first 10 GB are free and the sign-up page says no credit card is required (20). A person signs up in a browser. The Partner API can create accounts, but only for partners holding a master key (0).

Google Cloud Storage 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-operation and per-GB prices public without login, though the regional storage table draws by script (20). Always Free covers 5 GB-months and small operation counts in three US regions, but a Google Cloud billing account is needed; whether a card is required wasn't confirmed today (10). A person creates the project and billing account in a browser (0). 0 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 30.

Backblaze B2 89

No OpenAPI for the B2 APIs, but every MCP tool has a typed JSON Schema input, checked against committed contract fixtures (25). www.backblaze.com/llms.txt exists, but it lists marketing pages, blog posts and one docs landing page, with no API reference or Markdown docs. The MCP repo ships AGENTS.md and a Markdown skills pack for agents (5). Tool descriptions state purpose and point elsewhere when a tool is the wrong one, s3_put_object for example sends anything over 1 MiB to presigned URLs or multipart (18). Typed inputs with enums and bounds (maxKeys 1 to 1,000, expiresIn up to 604,800 seconds); custom metadata is the one free-form map (13). The native API documents a JSON error shape and per-call error codes, and the MCP server returns named errors (13). Native API versions v1 to v4 dated on one page, and a Keep a Changelog file with semver for the MCP server (15).

Google Cloud Storage 81

The JSON API is described by a public Google API Discovery document, storage v1 revision 20261103 (25). docs.cloud.google.com/llms.txt and /storage/llms.txt return 404 (0). The reference explains each method and the docs say when to use XML, JSON or gRPC and that gsutil is legacy (14). Typed resources with enums for storage classes and predefined ACLs (14). Samples in every client library and an error reference with HTTP codes and reasons (13). API version v1 and dated release notes, the latest on 4 November 2026 (15). 25 + 0 + 14 + 14 + 13 + 15 = 81.

Backblaze B2 80

MCP server v0.2.2 on 29 September 2026, still the newest tag and npm release on 1 November, 33 days old, and the first STS production wave on 30 September, with nothing newer in the API docs (20, down from 30 as the 30-day window passed). Six MCP releases since 18 August (0.1.0 to 0.2.2), all inside the 90 days from 3 August (20). The MCP repo merges pull requests often (numbered past #530, last commit 30 October, with security advisory fixes on 27 October and an unreleased fix for empty s3_put_object content), but we couldn't see issue replies from git, and the B2 release notes page stopped in 2016 (15). In the official MCP registry as io.github.backblaze-labs/b2-mcp at 0.2.2, marked latest on 1 November, and current official SDKs (15). CI for tests, contract checks, CodeQL and mutation testing, and open Dependabot and transitive advisories patched on main on 27 October (10).

Google Cloud Storage 88

Release notes on 4 November 2026 (30). Entries on 30 October, 13 October, 30 September, 10 September and 3 September (20). A closed service with dated release notes and paid support; issue trackers for the client libraries are public (15). Official client libraries in many languages (15). Libraries ship with end-to-end checksums by default since 30 September (8). 30 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 8 = 88.

Backblaze B2 90

Application keys scoped to one or more buckets, a name prefix and named capabilities, with an optional expiry, and revocable. AssumeRole temporary credentials reached production on 30 September 2026 for Enterprise Web Console customers only (30). Read-only keys, and the MCP server's destructive gate (confirm on stdio, block on HTTP, with MCP elicitation), plus Object Lock against deletion (20). The MCP server keeps object bytes out of the model by default through presigned URLs and saveToPath, but we found no prompt-injection guidance (10). Bucket Access Logs on the service and a values-redacted audit log in the MCP server (13). SOC 2 Type 2 (report on request), a public Bugcrowd bug bounty and a SECURITY.md in the MCP repo, but no security.txt on backblaze.com (17).

Google Cloud Storage 85

IAM roles on project, bucket and managed folder, V4 signed URLs, and an IAM permission per MCP method (mcp.tools.call plus the storage permission, such as storage.objects.delete for delete_object) (30). Read-only roles such as Storage Object Viewer, grantable down to a managed folder, soft delete with a pausable hard-deletion window and retention locks, but no confirmation step on delete_bucket or delete_object (17). read_object returns stored content to the model with no untrusted-content guidance on the MCP page (5). Cloud Audit Logs with Admin Activity and Data Access entries (15). google.com security.txt is valid to 2030-04-01 with a VRP policy link, per the Secret Manager listing's 1 November check, and Google Cloud publishes security bulletins; Cloud Storage's place in the SOC 2 scope wasn't read today (18). 30 + 17 + 5 + 15 + 18 = 85.