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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

"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."
"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not, more HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"The most valuable feature is the amount of programming storage available."
"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"Tech support has been outstanding."
"Synergy is much easier to use, which is saving us time. We are able to set the profiles for firmware upgrades. This makes the process for the care and feeding of the IT environment much simpler, quicker, and cleaner."
"Synergy is much easier to use, which is saving us time; we are able to set the profiles for firmware upgrades, making the process for the care and feeding of the IT environment much simpler, quicker, and cleaner."
"What does it not have? That's the harder question."
"The manageability is its most valuable feature. It is a fully managed platform, which is very simple to manage."
"The Synergy environment provides us with one view. We're able to manage the entire stack, top to bottom, from that single view."
"Technical support went really well; they were excellent in helping us find the solution to the issue, were eager to get this done, and they fixed it correctly."
"I highly recommend HPE Synergy to others, as it is user-friendly, high-performing, and has good support."
"The solution's greatest strengths lie in its ability to maintain a high availability and combine networking with hyper channel connectivity into a single component."
 

Cons

"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. And there is room for improvement there."
"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"We could, perhaps, use more GPUs in the future, go from eight to 16 GPUs per instance. That could run head-to-head against the DGX-1, the DGX-2 that NVIDIA has developed in their own chassis. That would be interesting to see."
"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."
"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"The pricing can be improved as it is a costly solution due to sanctions in Iran."
"They must improve the OneView tools."
"It's a lot more about some of the speeds and feeds, such as the 25, 50, 100 GB virtual connections."
"​Because we're using 2012, we're having issues making templates."
"It would be nice if the updates were not accompanied by downtime."
"We've had quite a few issues with stability on this system, with the Gen10 blades - with memory specifically. It's been problematic."
"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."
"A faster Composer module would be a good inclusion for the next release of this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The hardware licensing cost is reasonable."
"It costs us around $60,000 a year."
"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."
"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise14
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.
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