# Dropbox API + MCP vs Google Drive API + MCP

> Google Drive API + MCP has a score of 78.6 (A) against Dropbox API + MCP's 68.2 (B). Both do storage drive. The largest gap is reliability, 38 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Google Drive API + MCP has a score of 78.6 (A) against Dropbox API + MCP's 68.2 (B). Both do storage drive. The largest gap is reliability, 38 points.

- 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
- Google Drive API + MCP: grade A, 78.6/100, rank #12 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-drive-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-drive-api.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Dropbox API + MCP for schema & documentation (+8), maintenance & community (+5).

Pick Google Drive API + MCP for reliability (+38), agent ergonomics (+8), security & auth (+13), transparency & trust (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Dropbox API + MCP | Google Drive API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 52 | 90 | Google Drive API + MCP +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 91 | 83 | Dropbox API + MCP +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 85 | Google Drive API + MCP +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 86 | Google Drive API + MCP +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 35 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 85 | Dropbox API + MCP +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 74 | Google Drive API + MCP +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.2 · B** | **78.6 · A** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Dropbox API + MCP | Google Drive API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Dropbox | Google |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.dropboxapi.com/2` | `https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth |
| Pricing | Your plan | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 25 | 8 |
| 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 | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 980 stars, 282k npm/wk, 398k PyPI/wk | 12k stars, 1.3M npm/wk, 29.8M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.4/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Google Drive API + MCP.** No charge for API calls within quota, counted in quota units per minute per project and per user. OAuth consent, scope verification and a Cloud project before an agent can list a folder.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Google Drive API + MCP

1. Ask for drive.file rather than drive; it needs no verification and covers files the app created or the user picked
2. Use uploadType=resumable for anything over 5 MB and send chunks in multiples of 256 KB
3. For a link that expires, share to a user or group with expirationTime; a type=anyone permission can't expire, so delete it yourself
4. Pass fields= on files.list and files.get to cut the response, and page with pageToken
5. Back off exponentially on 429 rateLimitExceeded and 403 userRateLimitExceeded; 403 storageQuotaExceeded won't clear by retrying

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