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 8.3, and holds a 4.8% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 20.6% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

Read 29 Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers reviews

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2,594 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 90 HPE Synergy reviews

3,344 Views
2,408 Comparison Views

91% 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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rack Servers

July 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 4.8%, down 4.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 20.6% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.

Rack Servers

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Kalpesh Savaliya

Asst. Manager IT at APM Terminals, Inc.

Good support, and this product well-suited to our size of environment

We use these rack servers for terminal operating systems The initial setup could be easier. I have been working with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers for five years. This is a stable product. For our use case, this product is scalable up to 16 blades, including two sites. I don't know how well…

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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

"The solution is easily scalable."

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

"The C-series is the most valuable."

"The server can be configured easily."

"What I really like about the Cisco USC Server is its service profile."

"The solution is scalable."

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

"Its hardware is really reliable. We also like Cisco for its support."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pros

"The price is reasonable, and the stability and scalability are okay. We bought the solution because it suits our needs."

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

"The solution is built very well. It's very robust and durable."

"We bought it with the intent to replace the c7000 workstation blades. It is bigger than the workstation blades in core count, memory, and graphical capabilities. So, it has broadened us in that regard, and we have more capabilities."

"We've found the scalability to be reasonable if you are ready to invest in it."

"The most valuable features are the converged network adapters."

"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."

"It gives us ease of use. It's nice because we don't have to mess with networking once it's set up. Once it's done, we just put another blade in and go from there. We don't have to go back in, run more cables, deal with more data center stuff. We stick a blade in, use the server profile template, build out a server profile from that, and it just goes."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could improve integration with third-party solutions."

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

"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 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."

"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could improve by adding a wider portfolio because they only have two main categories, the C-220 and 240. There is no wide range of options as other solutions have, such as Dell. Additionally, if it was more flexible with the configuration it would be good."

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

"Definitely the support area needs improving. Especially the time response in case of hardware failure."

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

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers cons

"You can always improve some things."

"One of the issues that we that we have been having is with the firmware baselining. So, we need to just making sure that we get that working. However, we are in the early stages. It may well be that we just tweak a few things."

"I would definitely like to see them fix the firmware updates on all the blades. No matter what operating system it is running on, make sure I can do the firmware as well as the software for those firmware components at the same time. I don't want to have to rely on an external product. Let's bring that product inside the menu so that I have a better experience with updates."

"In the past, I have had issues with configurations."

"One of the things that I would like to see, and could be in their road map, is getting virtual connect to 100 Gig throughput."

"The speed in OneView and how it updates the entire configuration needs improvement. If they can do that, and it could be a little more clear on what impact different actions will have for certain things, that would be good."

"The initial setup was complex. It was slow and just didn't work. Even HPE couldn't make it work for 45 days."

"I'd get the firmware to be a little more secure and a little more streamlined."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The prices of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are higher compared to the competition. When we try and sell against the competition, then it becomes quite difficult to sell"

"The price for Cisco is a bit higher than its competitors. We paid 40k for one server."

"The pricing is expensive."

"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."

"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is high."

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

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

"If they plan to expand their infrastructure in periods, then simply Cisco is not a good choice."

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

"There is a perpetual license given when you purchase HPE Synergy."

"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."

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

"We pay about £500 for the solution."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."

"Nutanix was really hard to implement, and it was very pricey compared to what we get from Synergy."

"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 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."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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?

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 55% of the time

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

Compared 23% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

Oracle SPARC Servers 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 17% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

July 2025

Download Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

July 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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