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Eaton UPS vs Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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

Eaton UPS
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Power Solutions (1st)
Schneider Electric-APC Smar...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

JC
Provides more uptime for our Linear Accelerator, resulting in better patient care
The battery life seems to be pretty good. I don't have a lot of experience with other units of its size, but it does a good job of keeping our unit up. There is no active power management. It just keeps the power up. We haven't had any power failures that are long enough to completely drain the battery. It's been good for small power failures. In addition, I can access the built-in webpage on the UPS and use that to look at the status. It's on all the time and monitoring. It gives us an email once a month telling us that our device is working properly. It will also list the power events that happened in that month.
MS
Easy to manage, reliable, and worth the price
As long as we have electricity, we don't use it as it's transparent. However, I have other APC Smart systems and find that all of them are working perfectly. We like that we can manage it via the network. The product is very easy. The product has been very reliable. You can scale it by adding batteries.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have not had any outages or downtime using this UPS. It has kept us from having any outages."
"It's also very important that it's a rack-mountable, three-phase UPS. Some of the equipment we run requires a three-phase, such as HPE BladeSystems and some of the Cisco core devices."
"The footprint is standard, the same thing as every other solution that we could have gotten. But the power density in relation to its footprint compares really well. I have an APC that has the same footprint that's 20kW less. The Eatons have the same footprint but more power."
"Our Eaton UPSs help with business continuity. I have a reliable system in place that I know that I can trust."
"The touch-screen functionality is easy to read. There are tabs at the top and there are statuses at the top, graphics that give you a quick glance. We use the touch-screen for metering, to make sure the input and output meters are good. We also check alarm events and system history. Those are the things we usually check the most."
"Their service and their relationship with their customers is their biggest value, absolutely, compared to the competitors that I've dealt with... the service organization of Eaton is one of their strongest points."
"We have utilized the building-block nature of the solution as we have grown. We can add modules, which helps from a cost standpoint and protects the initial capital investment in the system, rather than having to completely replace the system. We can start small scale and incrementally fund additional capacity as needed rather than purchasing a system, having to pull it out, and buying a brand new one."
"The most valuable feature is that they work. They've been really reliable for us. They come as advertised. There is also a nice network feature that allows us to monitor them."
"Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable."
"I like it because we don't have any problems."
"We have not had a lot of issues over the many years we have been using the solution."
"You can scale it by adding batteries."
 

Cons

"I do like the ESS mode which I operate with the 9395s. However, I've got an issue with one of my UPS strings here in Denver: That ESS mode is too sensitive to utility noise. So the utility shows no outages but I've got the UPS switching it in and out of ESS mode."
"We do not use Eaton's remote monitoring, we use StruxureWare. We do use all of Eaton's web interface cards and their SNMP polling, but it's actually going to a Schneider product. Eaton makes something similar, it just wasn't as intuitive."
"They could enhance their software, but overall, it's a good solution."
"I would like to see there is a little more clarity on what the issue is on the notifications that we receive. This would make it easier for us. What we have to do now is sometimes go to the UPS to figure out exactly what the issue is, because it's not always clear."
"I think the batteries are based on lead-acid technology so they have to be replaced every five years, but with the new lithium-ion battery technology that is available, it might be good if, at some point, they updated their battery technology."
"Deployment of the product is typical. It's usually a six-week lead-time, which is typical of most equipment. It's not good, but it's just what is expected in the industry."
"The industry is going to a smaller footprint, but that does come at a cost, specifically for battery reserve time, size and density of the system, and BTU generation. Those three areas contribute to the heat generation factor. I think that they've done a really good job. But, when you look across our infrastructure, it's the UPS system that takes up the most space of any of our products."
"If they could reduce the footprint even more, that would be great. And they could always make heat dissipation better."
"Schneider's vendor, I believe, needs to be more involved with the customer. We have to constantly look for them because they don't come to me. I have to go there, and I don't want to. I don't want to waste time looking for a vendor. We require immediate attention."
"The duration of the batteries could be much better."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"We have been having some issues with the solutions controller and we are having problems finding spare parts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use their service plan, which includes parts so we don't do the maintenance on it ourselves. We have a service plan that we use, then they do all the maintenance and periodical maintenance (PM) work. If there are any hardware failures, then they also do the work. Therefore, it's a hardware/software support contract that includes labor."
"It is an expensive technology. The maintenance is expensive. The batteries are expensive. Replacing those batteries is expensive as a capital cost. You have to plan for it every four to five years, but it's the cost of doing business. The cost of not having a good reliable system in place is even higher when you have catastrophic failures. I would recommend the product, but you do have to be prepared to spend some money, both on the product as well as all the environmental preparations for powering the system and cooling system."
"They are around $50,000 to $70,000 depending on the options and the modules that we get."
"It has been more of a cost of doing business and maintaining our systems. We use it more as an insurance policy to ensure that our medical records stay up and running. The loss of revenue would have a bigger impact to our organization if our systems were not up and operating. An outage over a 24-hour period could easily be in the $300,000 range, which would be pretty substantial. We are a three million square foot hospital with 380 beds, so it would impact us quickly."
"I have a maintenance contract with Eaton, which has been very good. The notifications that we receive, we use email to my team, and they work well."
"It saves our company money. Because if there is an outage, it is approximately $1 million a minute for an outage. Since we are a very large credit union, outages would be very expensive for us."
"The cost per unit, as a rough estimate, is $300,000 per UPS 750-block."
"When you bid them out, they're all within a single-digit percentage point of each other... The cost of Eaton's service is competitive because we bid it out. I bid the service for all my units on campus: APCs, Lieberts, Eatons, because we've got a big hodgepodge of everything. Eaton won on price."
"It is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
No data available
 

Also Known As

Eaton Powerware, Powerware 9300 Series
Smart-UPS VT
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gamatronic
The Boston Red Sox