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Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers
Ranking in Blade Servers
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Synergy
Ranking in Blade Servers
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 2.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Synergy is 20.6%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

DavidMbugua - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable product with efficient security features
We use Cisco UCS E-Series Servers to host enterprise systems The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability. We rarely encounter downtime issues, and it has an expandable memory storage. Additionally, it blends well with Cisco's security tools. The platform's pricing…
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis
The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"Cisco has better visibility and manageability for disaster recovery."
"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability."
"The Cisco chassis is very easy to configure and any network engineer or expert can configure the solution and easily integrate it with the chassis."
"The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team."
"The product is overall stable."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"The solution helps us to implement new business requirements quickly with some app deployments."
"The hyper-converged infrastructure where everything is stateless is valuable. Basically, you have your compute storage and networking management."
"Being able to connect my 3PAR arrays to the Synergy platform is the most valuable aspect to me."
"We've found the scalability to be reasonable if you are ready to invest in it."
"I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates."
"Everything is combined in one chassis, you have storage, compute, networking. So you save a lot of space in the datacenter."
"The product enables the centralization of all administrative tasks."
"Ability to easily re-utilize parts of the hardware for different purposes."
 

Cons

"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"One thing that could be improved is the cost - it is very high for this Blade chassis as compared to other vendors. Especially in Asia. Asian customers mostly prefer a cost effective, cheaper solution."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"I would like to see improvements in VMware integration with Cisco, especially in terms of documentation and integration tools. Support of NVIDIA integration would also make it better."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"The product should also be available in a standard edition or a standard license since currently there is a need to pay for an extra license, which is very expensive, especially when considering the budgeting part of our company."
"The biggest pain point for us is the matrix for the firmware upgrades. It is a pain. You look at that thing, you might as well be reading Greek. It would be a whole lot better if they could clean up their documentation on it."
"We had some challenges during the implementation and a few issues afterward, but they were all sort of related to how Synergy interacts with Nexus. Our Nexus on the network side is managed by another group, and they had just gotten Nexus, so they weren't really familiar with how Nexus even worked. Getting these two to interact well was the majority of our issues. It really didn't have anything to do with Synergy. It points to know the environment that you are putting it in and making sure you are dotting all your i's and crossing all your t's when you are figuring out what their requirements are to communicate."
"​Because we're using 2012, we're having issues making templates."
"The pricing can be improved as it is a costly solution due to sanctions in Iran."
"The installation and initial setup process is complex and needs to be improved."
"I would like the ability to take the storage tray that is in a chassis and share it out to multiple chassis, not just the servers within the same chassis. This would be more efficient with resources."
"I would like the ability to have my storage components accessed from any other frame across the backplane. If we have a storage module and we run out of space in that frame, it'd be nice to be able to share it across the frames. You can do it with hyperconverged. Why can't you do it with Synergy?"
"The lowest echelon of HPE technical support is sadly uninformed, unknowledgeable, and dependent on wrote scripts. They won't answer a question without going through their script. It's not like you're actually talking to somebody who has any depth or time using any of the equipment."
"We had an issue during the initial setup with the 40 Gigabyte cards. They weren’t working, so we had to work really closely with HPE support to get them to work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution. The most expensive server from Cisco is Cisco UCS B-Series."
"It's expensive, they are quite pricey."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."
"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."
"We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."
"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."
"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"The price point is a little high. We were able to get a good deal on a promotion, to go with it. It would be nice to see the prices come down a little bit."
"We do CAPEX."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
The pricing of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is okay, costing around 30,000 per year. Support is included in this cost.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
I would like to see improvements in VMware integration with Cisco, especially in terms of documentation and integration tools. Support of NVIDIA integration would also make it better.
How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?
For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...
What do you like most about HPE Synergy?
It is a good product for hypervisors.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
Pricing in the blade server market is very competitive, with HPE offering a competitive price. Competitor products include Dell's MX series and Cisco's UCS X series.
 

Also Known As

UCS E-Series Servers
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Navaho,  MiroNet AG, Columbia Sportswear
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs. HPE Synergy and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.