Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

The compared Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #5 in Rack Servers , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 4.5% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 21.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

Read 29 Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers reviews

3,270 Views
1,957 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 89 HPE Synergy reviews

2,996 Views
2,123 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

HPE Synergy

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers and HPE Synergy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and others in Rack Servers.

To learn more, read our detailed Rack Servers Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rack Servers

February 2025

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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...

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Rack Servers (5th), Density Optimized Servers (3rd)

HPE Synergy

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Blade Servers (1st), Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is designed for Rack Servers and holds a mindshare of 4.5%, down 4.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 21.9% mindshare, up 21.8% since last year.

Rack Servers

Blade 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.

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CarlosArdila

Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very nice and stable with an easy administration GUI."

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

"The initial setup is straightforward and easy to do."

"The hardware customization capabilities are great."

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

"The solution is reliable and easy to use."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is server management."

"The solution is scalable."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pros

"HPE Synergy has been dependable for the past 15 years."

"We have more control over the firmware and how we are managing our physical servers."

"They're easy to swap and move around the datacenter, for sure. They don't occupy too much space for what they offer."

"It is first in class for composable infrastructure. It has the scalability that meets our future needs and the automation that builds into something that we are really looking forward to using."

"Great data storage and very good for software defined solutions."

"OneView is head and shoulders above the competition in this space."

"Being able to connect my 3PAR arrays to the Synergy platform is the most valuable aspect to me."

"The processing time has been about 50 times faster and allows us to do AI models."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

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

"The solution needs more capacity and more scalability."

"The solution can be improved by adjusting the cost."

"There is very little scalability for the cluster. If you need a higher availability, there is a user limitation. So that is the low side."

"Some customers have complained about delivery time. So, the main weakness is the lead time."

"In the version we need to use, the manager is still reliant on a full Java install on a Windows OS. This is inconvenient and problematic if you have multiple management tools on different versions of Java or if you move to a machine without the appropriate Java environment."

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

"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."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers cons

"A big thing for me is moving InfoSight for ProLiant into OneView, or at least connecting it. Today we have to use the iLO Amplifier Pack and that would require us to reconfigure iLO on every single one of the servers, independently, to get that data into InfoSight. We're really looking for a single control and management plane."

"We have flaky things, like a lot of bad fans."

"The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS. That would be helpful."

"The update is problematic. When you want to update the firmware, or when you want to update software on Composer, it takes a lot of time. A lot."

"They have not improved their product since it was purchased."

"Technical support for this solution has a very good initial response; however, escalation takes time, and most of the time the first level of support cannot solve your case."

"The stability is not good right now. We have had a couple of outages where we have receive very good support from HPE. However, we have not been able to come up with cut and dried reasons for why the outages have occurred. They have not been able to be reproduced, so it has been difficult getting our trust back."

"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?"

More HPE Synergy 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."

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

"The solution requires an annual licensing fee."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis, which is only $2,000 or $3,000."

"The price of the solution could be better when compared to other solutions. However, when we purchased the solution we received Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers in a bundle with other hardware, such as IP phones and networking switches."

"The solution is moderately priced."

"The price of the Cisco UCS C-Series Rack could improve. It's a little more expensive in comparison with Dell or HPE solutions."

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

"We do CAPEX."

"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."

"For me, the scalability is how much money that I need to spend on switches for how many frames, which ultimately means servers. To get the best bandwidth before the most recent product announcement, I have buy new switches every three frames. The competition is shipping a product right now where I only need switches every ten frames."

"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."

"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."

"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."

"We pay about £500 for the solution."

"The cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

University

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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.

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

The solution is moderately priced.

See all answers

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

The improvement should be done as per customer requirements.

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Synergy?

It is a good product for hypervisors.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?

The pricing is relatively high compared to Cisco servers. However, due to the volume of my purchases, I get good discounts.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 58% of the time

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

Compared 24% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

Dell XR2 Rugged Server vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 30% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE Synergy

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 9% of the time

Supermicro SuperBlade vs HPE Synergy

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

March 2025

Download Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

February 2025

Download HPE Synergy product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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.

Cisco

HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

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