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HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

HPE Apollo Systems
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (8th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (4th), Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. HPE Apollo Systems is designed for Density Optimized Servers and holds a mindshare of 20.9%, down 22.6% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 9.7% mindshare, down 21.9% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems20.9%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series20.9%
HPE Moonshot16.2%
Other42.0%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy9.7%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series9.6%
HPE BladeSystem8.6%
Other72.1%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Gökhan  DURMAZ - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Manager at TD SYNNEX
High-quality integration and strong support have optimized our rack server operations
HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity. When I speak about integrity, I speak about GPU integration or other integrations such as GPU integration, backup software integration, and hypervisor integration. Regarding the integration of high-speed interconnectors in HPE Apollo Systems, they impact computational tasks because the high-speed interconnect affects performance. I don't remember the specifics. Regarding the cooling technologies, they help to reduce operational costs. The positive impact I see from HPE Apollo Systems is that support is good and quality is good. In general, HPE Apollo Systems appears to be for rack servers with some optimization capabilities.
MR
Presales engineer and consultant at Hybrid Tech
Redundant components and single console management improve efficiency while high costs warrant attention
Regarding HPE Synergy, the most valuable feature is that the whole solution and the whole system operate in passive mode, and there are very few chances of downtime as all the components in HPE Synergy are redundant, including VC Flex modules and interconnect modules, as well as power supply and fan modules. Other networking and storage connectivity modules are also redundant, and we can mount the entire Synergy frame in a single rack. If we fully populate a Synergy frame with 12 servers, 12 physical machines could be mounted in one Synergy frame, mostly with redundant power supplies and networking ports along with SAN connectivity on a single console.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's pretty flexible."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"It's allowed us to compete with cloud storage providers like AWS to put together a scalable on-premises solution of more than 20PB at a similar pricepoint."
"Not having to manage traditional NAS has made a big difference."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance."
"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."
"Stability has been extremely good."
"Everything is combined in one chassis, you have storage, compute, networking, so you save a lot of space in the datacenter."
"The interfusion and administration are great features that all HPE products have."
"Synergy 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."
"HPE is really the leading platform."
"OneView, as a single point, a single management tool, it makes me delirious. It's really nice."
"OneView is head and shoulders above the competition in this space."
"It allows for easy management."
"In terms of our cost of operations, given the reduction of our deployment times, down to 20 percent of the time it used to take, we are definitely saving time, and that is time our engineers can spend doing other things, working on other projects and priorities."
 

Cons

"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."
"Our first batch of Apollo servers that we got were so new that it was just hard to know kind of what to expect from HPE and what they wanted to deliver to us."
"There is a shared battery for all cache controllers in the node. When you have to replace that element, you have to take down all three nodes and not just one."
"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."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."
"Synergy could probably do some code enhancements to simplify the deployment a bit more."
"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."
"When templates are created, there are some steps where you need to reboot the machines. Being in production, this is not a good idea. For example, if you reconfigure the network, you should not have to reboot the machine. You should just apply the new template and that's it."
"The only issue that we had was our rack was too small. The product is heavy, so it took a lot to get it in there."
"Gen 11 is being released. That's going to have a lot of advantages over Gen 10 and previous generations in terms of the cooling modules in the servers to keep them cooler and run with more efficiency and better performance. There are more management features with iLO 6 and the latest OneView management."
"You can always improve some things."
"The networking part is very complex; it should be simplified."
"But with other stuff, software stuff especially, say Data Protector - now it's Micro Focus - it was a total nightmare."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."
"There is a perpetual license given when you purchase HPE Synergy."
"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."
"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."
"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."
"We pay about £500 for the solution."
"We do CAPEX."
"The cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?
It is too early to say what improvements HPE Apollo Systems could implement because the report still needs to come out and the customer needs to properly evaluate the solution.
What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?
My main use case for HPE Apollo Systems is replacing many of the servers and storage boxes at one of the customer's sites to achieve workload optimization and optimized solutions. Additionally, whe...
What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?
My advice for someone considering HPE Apollo Systems is that if they are looking for consolidation and their workload involves high availability requirements, or if they want to utilize GPUs, then ...
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

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Density Optimized Servers. Updated: May 2026.
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