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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
91
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 3.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Synergy is 18.8%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Synergy18.8%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.0%
Other78.2%
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

"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"Cisco has better visibility and manageability for disaster recovery."
"The product is overall stable."
"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."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"Where it used to take one week to re-image or upgrade our hosts, it can now take one day."
"Valuable features include its dependability, reliability, and the ease of managing the system."
"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."
"The solution help us to implement new business requirements quickly, since it is easy and quick to upgrade our capacity."
"It's more composable, you can use storage as well as compute blades. So maybe it's more versatile compared to the traditional blade systems."
"The scalability is very good. The ability to link chassis or frames together makes it simplistic, especially with the use of OneView."
"Improved storage, scalability, and ease-of-use."
"The most valuable feature is its composable infrastructure. Everything I need is in the box. Manageability is through OneView, so I can get all the information about the box itself at any time I want."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"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 tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"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."
"They were not so deep into integration with VMware."
"The technical support was about the only negative experience that I had. It was a mixed bag when we were first standing it up. We had some requirements from our information security department, and technical support wasn't able to give me immediate answers. They had to engage engineering, which they did, then they got me the answers. However, it took a week of back and forth conversations and phone calls to get it all worked out."
"Sometimes there are firmware or software difficulties when connecting between networks or with storage."
"The setup was a bit complex."
"I'd like to see the firmware updates, as well as the built-in OneView and imager in Composer, become a little more powerful and faster."
"The performance could be better. The converged network cards initially didn't work. However, later on in the newer version, they came up with 50 GB network cards to replace the 20 GB ones, and it's perfectly fine now. At times, it could also be more stable."
"Over the two years of using HPE Synergy, we have found some hardware failures that are frequent in the SOP models, CNA cards, and converged network adapters. These failures are frequently happening for a lot of the customers."
"HPE Synergy could improve by developing the chassis to allow for more drives or disks. Currently, it supports only two drives in the blade server, which can be limiting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
"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 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."
"The licensing is more around the software for RGS, because we are deploying bare metal installs. It is mainly the operating system and any lights-out management. So, licensing is minimum. We are licensing it annually."
"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."
"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...
What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?
In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...
 

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: September 2025.
869,952 professionals have used our research since 2012.