Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs. HPE Apollo Systems

Download the complete report

Helped 831,265 peers since 2012

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 C-Series Rack Ser...

Ranking in Rack Servers

5th

Ranking in Density Optimized Servers

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HPE Apollo Systems

Ranking in Rack Servers

7th

Ranking in Density Optimized Servers

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Density Optimized Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is 8.6%, down from 15.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 24.7%, down from 28.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Density Optimized Servers

Featured Reviews

Ehsan Emad

Head of IT at Synnapex

The VIC card is the most important feature.

I rate Cisco USC C-Series Rack Servers 10 out 10. If you plan to buy a C-Series, you should be clear about why you want to use it because the uses vary. different. Whether you're using Cisco, HPE, Dell or any other brand, it's essential to define your use case. For example, are you using it for a simulation graphics, calculations, etc.? Depending on the use case, you might want to go with a small server with more CPU. Sometimes you need a light CPU with a powerful GPU. For example, if we have a C-Series with four CPUs at the same time, or we have a server that's handled two CPUs at the same time—the purpose is crucial. C-Series is good enough compared to other competitors like HPE and the other ones. The HPE C20 is one unit and has a lot of RAM support, but the C-series is number one, in my opinion.

Read full review

Gayan Senadheera

Director at Tyax Pvt Ltd

Offers higher capacities compared to other solutions, making it suitable for handling large storage needs

In terms of improvement, we could benefit from some training. If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo. Currently, we haven't received any specific training related to HPE Apollo throughout my career. If HPE Apollo provides training, we can share the knowledge with our partners, which could lead to more opportunities for HPE Apollo in the market. Deal protection and other support measures would also be beneficial, as they could help us achieve better results in this market.

Read full review

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 easily scalable."

"The C-series is the most valuable."

"On the Cisco side, there is a benefit in terms of server management. Cisco provides UCS Manager, which is a multi-tenant site manager. We can manage multiple sites while maintaining disaster recovery, a feature not available on other platforms."

"The VIC card is the most important feature."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the expansion and replacement of parts."

"It has centralized our server management and allows us to treat servers like a pool of resources instead of discrete devices."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack is the use of databases, such as MySQL."

"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are agileness, ease of operation, and manageability."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pros

"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."

"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."

"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"

"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."

"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."

"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."

"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable. It is quite effective for the work for which we are using it. We are mainly running video servers on these, and we are quite happy with the resilience, density storage, and streaming capacity of the system."

"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

Cons

"The product must add customer-friendly monitoring features."

"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where Cisco needs to focus on making some improvements."

"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers can improve by providing customization features to allow us to deploy them on the cloud. For example, we need VMware to allow us to accomplish a cloud deployment."

"The price of the solution is problematic, not the solution itself. It could be less expensive."

"I think the pricing is high. Cisco has to look for bundling this solutions with other applications."

"The hard drive of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not very good. I have already replaced three of them."

"The C-Series is not designed to be as scalable. They are designed to have enough RAM and enough CPU on their own side. If you want scalability, it's better to choose the B-Series— the Blade Servers — because those are much more scalable with Fabric Interconnect."

"The initial setup could be easier."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers cons

"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."

"We could, perhaps, use more GPUs in the future, go from eight to 16 GPUs per instance. That could run head-to-head against the DGX-1, the DGX-2 that NVIDIA has developed in their own chassis. That would be interesting to see."

"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."

"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."

"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."

"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."

"I would want to see the flexibility of being able to run various network protocols including InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, as well as iSCSI, with iSCSI going up to 100 gigabytes per second -that would be outstanding."

"We would like to see improved cooling because that is quite an issue. If you put that much compute power into a single rack, cooling really becomes an issue. And there is room for improvement there."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company has an agreement with Cisco to get discounted rates. It is one of the reasons why we chose the product."

"This product is slightly more expensive when compared to others."

"The server itself isn't costly at all, but the CPU and the RAM can be pretty expensive. You can buy a UCS for $2,000, but the RAM and CPU can cost up to $80,000. The most expensive asset is the intel processor, but it depends on how many cores you want and the technology you want to use on your CPU, like Hyper-V, etc."

"This product is quite expensive and it would be better if it were cheaper."

"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."

"The solution is moderately priced."

"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is approximately 20 percent more than other solutions."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution is more expensive than Dell which is their main competitor. However, there are times we have managed to receive a comparable price."

"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."

"It is an expensive solution but it is worth the money. The standard licensing cost is for the GPU and the features that someone is using. There are additional charges but they depend on the solution."

"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."

"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Density Optimized Servers solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The C-series is the most valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The solution is moderately priced.

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The improvement should be done as per customer requirements.

What do you like most about HPE Apollo?

HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products.

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?

HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved. The solution should provide fast delivery when it comes to replacing a particular product that is under warranty.

What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?

We use HPE Apollo for specific requirements of Linux servers.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Comparisons

Compared 55% of the time

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 26% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Synergy vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 33% of the time

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerEdge FX vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XE Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 10% of the time

More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors

Product Reports

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Download Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers product report

HPE Apollo Systems

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Also Known As

Unified Computing System C-Series, Cisco UCS C-Series

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo

Learn More

Video not available

Cisco

Video not available

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Overview

UCS C-Series Rack Servers deliver unified computing in an industry-standard form factor to reduce TCO and increase agility. Each server addresses varying workload challenges through a balance of processing, memory, I/O, and internal storage resources.

The HPE Apollo high-density server family is built for the highest levels of performance and efficiency. They are rack-scale compute, storage, networking, power and cooling – massively scale-up and scale-out – solutions for your big data analytics, object storage and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. From water-cooling that’s 1,000X more efficient than air, to “right-sized scaling” with 2X the compute density for workgroup and private cloud workloads, the HPE Apollo line is a dense, high-performance, tiered approach for organisations of all sizes.

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Artoni Transporti, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, City of Mississauga, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Kind en Gezin, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Nationwide, Quest, Talbots, University of St. Gallen

Weta Digital

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs. HPE Apollo Systems