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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 21.3%, down 23.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 10.6% mindshare, down 22.5% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems21.3%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series21.6%
Huawei FusionServer X Series15.9%
Other41.199999999999996%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy10.6%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series10.2%
HPE BladeSystem8.9%
Other70.30000000000001%
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

"We had a PoC, as I said, and we were happy with it and decided to implement it, as it satisfies all our needs and is the perfect solution."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not, more HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."
"We are running Apollo with SL-series servers and the best thing about them is the density of the storage area available."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"The solution is built very well; it's very robust and durable."
"The most valuable features are the evolution of our existing HPE portfolio, the integration with our existing tool sets, and the enhanced capabilities that OneView bring."
"The solution has reduced our cost of operations and has also reduced our IT infrastructure costs."
"The product enables the centralization of all administrative tasks."
"Composability... We show our partners the value of composability and how it can meet their needs."
"It has improved our procurement and day zero provisioning. We are bringing in racks of Synergy which are not populated with the blades, then we are buying the blades and populating them, as our business needs. This has been pretty helpful to be able to sort of pre-package the data center with the Synergy platform, then deploy servers into it as we grow."
"The solution has decreased our deployment time by 10 to 20 percent."
"We chose HPE because Synergy is innovate in the way that it delivers its services and I think that is very interesting."
 

Cons

"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."
"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."
"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."
"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"The technical support for HPE Apollo Systems 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."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"The cost is quite high."
"I am rating this solution an eight (out of ten) because it is really good. However, you can always improve some 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."
"I would like more storage with this solution, because we still need 3PAR or other storage outside the box for the amount of data that we have."
"I find the product documentation to be disorganized; it's not intuitive and the info required for checking a specific step-by-step configuration is buried under too much literature."
"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."
"They were not so deep into integration with VMware."
"It's a lot more about some of the speeds and feeds, such as the 25, 50, 100 GB virtual connections."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"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."
"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 biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."
"We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure."
"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."
"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 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."
"We pay about £500 for the solution."
"For me, the scalability is how much money that I need to spend on switches for how many frames, which ultimately means servers. To get the best bandwidth before the most recent product announcement, I have buy new switches every three frames. The competition is shipping a product right now where I only need switches every ten frames."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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 Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?
Some features could be added to HPE Apollo Systems in the future, and I feel that some capability is needed. HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability. Two f...
What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?
I have been distributing this product for three years. I don't have specific use cases, and everything about the major use case for HPE Apollo Systems is good. I don't know the purpose clients are ...
What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?
I am not using these products today, and I do not work with some specific firewalls. My company is TD Synnex, a distributor company, and I work for this company. My email is , and my first name is ...
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: April 2026.
891,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.