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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 (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 (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 21.4%, down 22.3% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 9.2% mindshare, down 21.3% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems21.4%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series20.3%
HPE Moonshot17.0%
Other41.3%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy9.2%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series9.1%
HPE BladeSystem8.4%
Other73.30000000000001%
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

"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"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 this is a machine that should be considered instead of deploying multiple machines and multiple systems."
"It's pretty flexible."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
"Not having to manage traditional NAS has made a big difference."
"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."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"We chose HPE because Synergy is innovate in the way that it delivers its services and I think that is very interesting."
"Improved storage, scalability, and ease-of-use."
"OneView, as a single point, a single management tool, it makes me delirious. It's really nice."
"I believe, compared to the C7000, it delivers a significant amount of innovation and flexibility,"
"This solution has greatly increased the efficiency of our IT infrastructure teams."
"It has improved our procurement and day zero provisioning."
"We build out a whole stack at one time, so we don't have to worry about it until that stack is full, then that gives us time to get the next one ready."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"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."
"One drawback which I had: When I needed to expand storage on the Apollo, I had significant problems getting disks for it."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"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."
"Big stability issues with the CPU on the first generation which made them virtually unusable."
"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."
"The speed in OneView and how it updates the entire configuration needs improvement. If they can do that, and it could be a little more clear on what impact different actions will have for certain things, that would be good."
"The deployment time of a system through OneView is pretty slow, but apparently that's being addressed in an upcoming update."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"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."
"There is always room for improvement. Based on our use cases, I don't believe there are any additional features required."
"The lowest echelon of HPE technical support is sadly uninformed, unknowledgeable, and dependent on wrote scripts."
"The solution must concentrate on improving the product quality."
"The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS, would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"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."
"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."
"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."
"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 cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
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.
896,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.