Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Superdome X 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 B-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Superdome X
Ranking in Blade Servers
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.7%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Superdome X is 10.6%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Prasanth Kailasam - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports multiple hypervisors but needs to improve in the area of configuration
Speaking about how the tool can improve computing efficiency in data centers, I feel that, ultimately, there are other kinds of hardware or servers that Cisco provides. From a management perspective, certain aspects can be incorporated to help users understand their current standing. It would be good if certain larger configurations could also be made suitable for the tool to suit the needs of multiple customer bases. For virtualization needs, the product works well. I have dealt with certain virtualization environments using - Cisco UCS B-Series. As of now, the tool is fine. Cisco UCS B-Series recently got registered with Nutanix, one of the market's HCI platforms. Nutanix can run on Cisco. Cisco UCS B-Series' direction is right. I don't think any further improvement is required in the tool right now. The integration capabilities of the product are okay. I haven't seen any challenges when installing the tool in an environment. I think that the tool supports multiple hypervisors. Speaking about the feature that has improved our company's data center operation, I would say that the Cisco brand name provides our organization with the benefits we need from the product. I believe that manageability is one crucial aspect of the tool, considering that it is pretty easy to manage. Performance-wise, some improvements have been introduced in Cisco UCS B-Series. Whenever somebody evaluates and goes ahead with some traditional setup in their environment, along with HP and Dell, they can also consider Cisco as a part of it because it has become more cost-effective and competitive presently. Networking-wise, the tool is pretty strong, and it operates as a brand that actually helps with the support offered to customers. The support offered by Cisco adds a lot of confidence for the clients. I feel that Cisco is doing a lot of innovation in order to offer scalability and flexibility to adopt future technologies. I believe Cisco users might see a lot more solutions that get introduced in the market that might become more and more compatible with many products in the future. In the future, I think that users will see AI and other related aspects run pretty well in a Cisco environment. I would say that the benefits and value of the use of the product stem from the brand name attached to Cisco products. Cisco's support when you use Cisco UCS B-Series is good. In the networking space, Cisco has been a leader for a very long time, and the same kind of credibility is what you can expect when you consider Cisco UCS B-Series. Considering the availability of the products from competitors, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.
OmobolajiOlaloku - PeerSpot reviewer
High resilience, performs well, and high availability
HPE Superdome X is used in my data center for our core banking application The most valuable features of HPE Superdome X are speed, performance, and resilience. HPE Superdome X can improve by adding a lot of cloud capabilities to allow this solution to be cloud-ready in case the customer wants…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very reliable in comparison to the other brands."
"The product's tech support has good people."
"The architecture of this solution is very valuable; it has five traffic interconnects, and uses a network highway so bandwidth is never an issue."
"I can connect Cisco UCS B-Series to multiple chassis and rack servers using a unified platform, then manage them on a single console."
"The servers' resilience was particularly impactful."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to replace a server with another one, simply by applying the profile"
"They've been responsive and helpful whenever we've needed assistance."
"The solution is stable."
"This product is very reliable."
"I like the robustness of the machine. Similar performance could likely be achieved with other configurations, but this machine is very stable."
"The most valuable features of HPE Superdome X are speed, performance, and resilience."
"Superdome X is a system that can compete in terms of performance and uptime, but it's now standard. That is the great value. There are competitors like IBM, for example, but IBM has a propietary operating system. With Superdome X, you have a system that can run Windows, Red Hat, or VMware, but in a mission critical server."
"SDX gave us a very large RAM and we need that for the large-scale graph-handling applications."
"One of the really cool things about Superdome is, depending on the model you choose, you can put 8-16 blades in it."
"We've got a few of them, because we needed some really large machines. So far, they've been working pretty good."
 

Cons

"The solution’s technical support could be better."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"The integration is an area where Cisco UCS B-Series needs to provide users with more details."
"Right now, the market is rapidly transitioning to solid-state media and the Cisco options tend to be less varied and more expensive than a broader slate of products from HP, Dell or IBM."
"HTML5 interface is a much needed improvement over the old Java interface, but still needs a little work."
"The solution is difficult to set up."
"The high price of the solution is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Cisco is expensive and difficult to manage. The product is not intuitive. It also needs to improve storage management and upgrades."
"In this specific model, it could be beneficial to have a server configuration similar to Cisco, like the kind offered in HPE Superdome Flex X280. The ability to separate the chassis is important because we are forced to use two chassis even with lower loads. So introducing more flexibility in the Superdome environment would be helpful."
"I know we support Windows and I think it's Red Hat, and I'd like to see more OSs supported."
"I'd like to see the onboarding of some storage class memory to really expand the already very large RAM, into something that could be even much bigger."
"What would make it better from my point of view is if HPE spent more time on testing with the actual built-in Red Hat Linux drivers, as opposed to always trying to say, "Use our driver.""
"HPE Superdome X can improve by adding a lot of cloud capabilities to allow this solution to be cloud-ready in case the customer wants to move it to the cloud."
"It would be helpful if you could do the maintenance completely online."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS does not require a license. However, this license is not specific to users."
"Every three years, I need to renew my license and support the product...Every time I have to opt for the renewal of the license, I am shocked to learn about the increase in the price of the product."
"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."
"Cisco products are at the high end in terms of cost, but everything is included with the licensing fees."
"It is highly-priced."
"The price of this solution is a little bit higher, but given that this system is Cisco, it feels more secure and dependable."
"The licensing cost is a little bit expensive because by default, it depends on your fabric interconnect model. Most of the time, however, Cisco provides a lot of promotions to the customers, so the cost can be waived for many projects. The price of the chassis itself is fair."
"It is not a yearly subscription but a yearly support renewal that you need to do for Cisco UCS B-Series."
"The pricing is not very cheap. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very inexpensive, and ten being very expensive."
"There is a very expensive one-time cost with no licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Blade Servers solutions are best for your needs.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS B-Series?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?
The licensing cost for three years, followed by an AMC for two years, is reasonable. However, the management software, Cisco One, is priced a bit high but still considered reasonable. No additional...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
Last year, we faced challenges with firmware upgrades, but they were quickly resolved with assistance from Cisco TAC.
What do you like most about HPE Superdome X?
I like the robustness of the machine. Similar performance could likely be achieved with other configurations, but this machine is very stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Superdome X?
The pricing is not very cheap. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very inexpensive, and ten being very expensive.
What needs improvement with HPE Superdome X?
In this specific model, it could be beneficial to have a server configuration similar to Cisco, like the kind offered in HPE Superdome Flex X280. The ability to separate the chassis is important be...
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
HP Integrity Superdome, HP Superdome X
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Anonymous Banking Group, Artoni Transporti, Bellevue, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Hertz, Houston Methodist, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co.KG, Outscale, Sony Corporation, Talbots
Pella
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE Superdome X and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.