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HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

Why PeerSpot?
The compared HPE Apollo Systems and HPE Synergy solutions aren't in the same category. HPE Apollo Systems is ranked #2 in DOS , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 21.2% mindshare in the category. HPE Synergy is ranked #5 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 8.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of HPE Apollo Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of HPE Synergy users who would recommend it.
HPE Apollo Systems
Read 25 HPE Apollo Systems reviews
  • 3,294 Views
  • 626 Comparison Views
96% willing to recommend
HPE Synergy
Read 91 HPE Synergy reviews
  • 5,914 Views
  • 4,022 Comparison Views
91% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between HPE Apollo Systems and HPE Synergy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Density Optimized Servers.

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To learn more, read our detailed Density Optimized Servers Report (Updated: August 2026).
Buyer's Guide
Density Optimized Servers
August 2026
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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 (9th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (5th), 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 21.2%, up 19.3% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 8.6% mindshare, down 19.5% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems21.2%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series19.0%
HPE Moonshot17.6%
Other42.199999999999996%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy8.6%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series8.4%
HPE BladeSystem8.0%
Other75.0%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Gökhan DURMAZ - PeerSpot reviewer
Gökhan DURMAZ
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.
Read full review
MS
Msheroz S
Works at Saudi Telecom Company
Manage servers efficiently with an integrated view while reducing downtime
My use case is to serve the complete IT environment of the telecom, including all cloud applications. I use HPE Synergy servers for my private cloud and for network management systems. 70% of my workload is running on HPE servers The integrated view, such as managing complete servers and…
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability has been extremely good."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"I find HPE Apollo Systems to be scalable and efficient for AI initiatives, and the environmental efficiency has a significant impact on operational costs."
"The most valuable feature is the amount of programming storage available."
More HPE Apollo Systems pros
"The initial setup is fine."
"This is above and beyond anything else any of the competitors have on the market. If you're researching this, you're going down the right path."
"The solution help us to implement new business requirements quickly, since it is easy and quick to upgrade our capacity."
"The module is quite good and very cost effective for production."
"HPE Synergy has been dependable for the past 15 years."
"The flexibility to link them together and configure them gives us the ability to scale out easily, to add more compute resources as needed... The way that they're scalable and flexible means we can add additional servers in quickly... We're not spending a lot of time doing procurement and building of physical servers."
"We can put a bigger workload on there because the systems can produce a lot more resources now."
"In today's world, there isn't a better solution to create a private cloud for them."
More HPE Synergy pros
 

Cons

"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"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."
"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."
"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 are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"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."
"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."
More HPE Apollo Systems cons
"The initial setup, because it was still in beta, was complex."
"​Because we're using 2012, we're having issues making templates."
"I would be more comfortable if Ansible actually rolled back the data used for automating platforms. If it could be communicated to the upstream Ansible, I wouldn't need to go back and forth and validate the libraries as we upgrade the Ansible version."
"I would really like a way to validate the firmware in my specific environment before trying to deploy it. Those were the issues we had early on with firmware upgrades, particularly around certificates. All in all, having some level of confidence aside from it just having been tested generically would help. Something more specific to my environment would be very helpful."
"One of the things that I would like to see, and could be in their road map, is getting virtual connect to 100 Gig throughput."
"The solution should support Cisco or other vendor interconnect models."
"What we are observing is to upgrade a whole rack of Synergy, so four frames when it's fully loaded, we are spending about 50 human hours doing that."
"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."
More HPE Synergy cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive 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."
"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."
"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."
"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."
"There is a perpetual license given when you purchase HPE Synergy."
"We pay about £500 for the solution."
"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."
"We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."
More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

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.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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 ...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 11% of the time
Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 11% of the time
HPE Moonshot vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
HPE Moonshot vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 8% of the time
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 7% of the time
Intel Server System vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
Intel Server System vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 4% of the time
More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors
HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy Logo
HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy
Compared 10% of the time
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series vs HPE Synergy Logo
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series vs HPE Synergy
Compared 9% of the time
HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy Logo
HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy
Compared 9% of the time
Lenovo ThinkAgile CP Series vs HPE Synergy Logo
Lenovo ThinkAgile CP Series vs HPE Synergy
Compared 8% of the time
Supermicro SuperBlade vs HPE Synergy Logo
Supermicro SuperBlade vs HPE Synergy
Compared 3% of the time
More HPE Synergy Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
HPE Apollo Systems
September 2026
HPE Apollo Systems reportDownload HPE Apollo Systems product report
Buyer's Guide
HPE Synergy
September 2026
HPE Synergy reportDownload HPE Synergy product report
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

HPE Apollo Systems deliver high compute and storage density, scalability, and environmental efficiency with exceptional performance for AI initiatives and data capturing across diverse applications.

HPE Apollo Systems are characterized by their dense compute and storage capabilities, offering flexibility in configurations to meet the demands of AI, deep learning, and high-performance computing. Their management software simplifies deployment, ensuring effective performance across tasks that require significant storage. While Apollo Systems are designed for efficiency and scalability, improvements can be made in security, tech support, and integration with hypervisors and backup solutions. Enhancing cooling and licensing processes, connectivity, and faster drive writing capabilities are also areas for growth.

What are the key features of HPE Apollo Systems?
  • High Compute Density: Supports intense processing needs efficiently.
  • Scalability: Easily adaptable to growing data demands.
  • Environmental Efficiency: Minimizes energy consumption, enhancing sustainability.
  • Flexible Configurations: Caters to a range of applications from AI to data storage.
  • Reliable Performance: Consistently delivers under various workloads.
What benefits or ROI should users look for?
  • Cost Effectiveness: Reduces expenditure with its efficient design.
  • Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly fits into diverse IT environments.
  • Performance Enhancement: Boosts operational efficiency and output.
  • Easy Deployment: Streamlines the setup process for quick operation.

HPE Apollo Systems find extensive use in sectors such as telecom, supporting high-performance computing and AI workloads. They optimize Linux servers, replace legacy systems, and serve as storage solutions across industries. Their applications span from big data management in Splunk clusters to backup solutions in medical faculties, enhancing compute power and storage within compact racks.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE Synergy offers a composable infrastructure enabling hardware reuse and automation, appreciated for manageability through OneView, which simplifies configuration and deployment.

HPE Synergy's strengths include flexibility, scalability, and a modular design that integrates with existing IT infrastructure for improved performance and manageability. It excels in high-density virtualization tasks and is especially suited to VMware and Hyper-V environments, SQL and Oracle databases, and large-scale data centers. Though users note challenges such as complex management interfaces and integration issues with non-HPE systems, its ability to replace aging systems like C7000 and facilitate hybrid cloud transformation is significant. Requirements for streamlined firmware updates, better storage integration, faster deployment, enhanced support, and documentation are acknowledged.

What are the most important features of HPE Synergy?
  • Composable Infrastructure: Enables hardware re-utilization and automation.
  • OneView: Simplifies configuration and reduces deployment time.
  • Image Streamer: Enhances flexibility and ease of use in configuration management.
  • Converged Network Management: Streamlines network operations.
  • Modular Design: Ensures compatibility and scalability.
What benefits and ROI should be evaluated?
  • Ease of Administration: Centralized management reduces complexity.
  • Diverse Workload Handling: Efficiently manages virtualization, databases, and cloud environments.
  • Performance Enhancement: Integrates effectively with existing infrastructure.
  • Reduced Power Consumption: Users seek more efficiency in energy use.
  • Comprehensive Integration: Desirable improvements in OneView integration benefit operations.

HPE Synergy is widely implemented across industries focusing on virtualization and cloud transformation, providing enhanced compute power and flexibility to companies transitioning from older systems. It supports hybrid cloud infrastructure management and handles the demands of large-scale data centers efficiently.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise
 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Buyer's Guide
Density Optimized Servers
August 2026
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