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Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 23, 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

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
Ranking in Rack Servers
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd), Data Center Networking (4th), Blade Servers (5th)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 27.8%, down from 28.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 4.2%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Masuood - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles workloads and diverse applications efficiently
We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload. For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time. We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.
Gayan Senadheera - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite flexible when you use it."
"We can pull out elements and change them ourselves."
"The convenience, because we can swap very easily swap hard drives when one goes down."
"Their support is very good and very effective."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is a user-friendly solution that provides performance stability."
"The reliability of its hardware and the support they provide are valuable."
"iDRAC is the most valuable feature because of the ease of use and management and everything that it provides is super useful. The security features that PowerEdge provides, including firmware threat detection is good."
"The iDRAC feature is valuable. It is for remote handling. If there is a connection issue when we deliver a server to a remote site, we only need to ask them to switch iDRAC on. We then have direct access to the RAID server configuration without having switched it on."
"We usually use three blades for two-rack units, and with enough storage, it's really a small system with a powerful CPU, powerful hard drives, powerful disks."
"We're going to buy another Apollo 6500. We may configure it with half the number of GPUs because that may be all we need. In a sense, we can see the Apollo 6500 being so powerful that we only need half the GPU capability that we have now."
"It's very reliable. I haven't had a single failure at all in the year and a half; not the slightest problem with it."
"It's pretty flexible. You can choose how much storage you put on the server. You can have one to three nodes, depending on whether you want more CPU or storage."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"we can use the same platform for several use cases: Hadoop, Ceph, and we are considering the server for another use case right now. It's a single solution, we only have to integrate it once and we can use it for several technologies."
 

Cons

"They need to improve the support, as they are not very responsive, and they don't get back to you right away."
"I would like to see better IOPS, i.e. the disc speed. That is the main limitation for scaling up the number of users."
"From the licensing model perspective, it might be useful for enterprises to get an overall enterprise license, rather than licensing each server. That is one option because we tend to buy the service with the licenses, but some of our older equipment does not have them."
"The product must provide more options to add GPUs to the machines."
"The iDRAC Telemetry that monitors PowerEdge system data and provides analytics could be a little bit more in-depth. Someone wanted more information on the RAM and the hard drives and we couldn't retrieve this information."
"The design, in terms of power efficiency, can be improved."
"The price could possibly use improvement. Dell servers are not the most affordable, and pricing is always a consideration. Otherwise, I don't see any specific areas for improvement."
"Its price could be better."
"We have tried to used standardization using Ubuntu Linux and it's been hard. They had some difficulties getting the RAID configuration up and running because there are no drivers for it. It's not supported by HPE."
"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."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"One drawback which I had: When I needed to expand storage on the Apollo, I had significant problems getting disks for it. It was a very long wait-time. So, if I were to give any advice in regards to improving this product, I would say make more of the 8TB disks available quicker."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"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."
"Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is reasonable. It's very comparable to similar solutions."
"At present, the pricing seems a bit high for us."
"The product's pricing is not good."
"The product is cheaper than HP servers, but the price could always be better."
"The pricing for PowerEdge servers is reasonable."
"I don't see any issues with respect to licensing. It's power-efficient, so it's beneficial to the customers price-wise. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The pricing is good compared to other products."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
The price of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is competitive. There's always room for support improvements, and the AI features could continue to be enhanced as the relationship with Nvidia grows.
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.
 

Also Known As

PowerEdge R
HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Weta Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.