HPE Synergy vs Lenovo Flex System comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Lenovo is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 21.3% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to Lenovo’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

HPE Synergy

Read 88 HPE Synergy reviews

3,569 Views
2,572 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Lenovo Flex System

Read 10 Lenovo Flex System reviews

468 Views
352 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Lenovo Flex System

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Synergy and Lenovo Flex System based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Blade Servers solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

October 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 816,406 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

HPE Synergy

Ranking in Blade Servers

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Lenovo Flex System

Ranking in Blade Servers

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Synergy is 21.3%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo Flex System is 3.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Petr Student

Senior Technical Architect at Tietoevry

The composable infrastructure allows you to build and stack shared capacity

The hardware is fine but OneView needs additional event management and filtering options. Documentation could better describe the solution's configuration possibilities. Sometimes there are firmware or software difficulties when connecting between networks or with storage. The solution is a hardware that is defined by its software so management issues can occur on servers or within the software running the hardware. For example, an electric car depends on its software. If the software is bad, then you can expect issues and problems that might not allow you to start the car. A technician might have uploaded the wrong code into firmware or a software developer might have make code mistakes and these things cause issues. The solution can only be as reliable as the software used to run it.

Read full review

Syed Ibrahim

Assistant Manager Systems - IT Infrastructure at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Provides a high initial ceiling before upscaling is required, user-friendly and rich in resources, but has occasional stability issues

The solution should come with cloud native applications to prepare for cloud based solutions. Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem. The level of customer support needs to be improved. There is currently an issue with Lenovo switching out SAN switches from the chassis, which will cause problems for people who already have a set up with the SAN switch connected to the central storage. This could require an entirely different network, adding an additional cost for the user.

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

"We have more control over the firmware and how we are managing our physical servers."

"Everything is in one place. We have one place to with OneView. It provides one console with one place to get to everything. The one interface makes it easier. We have one guy who does almost everything in it."

"We've found the scalability to be reasonable if you are ready to invest in it."

"HPE Synergy has been dependable for the past 15 years."

"The product enables the centralization of all administrative tasks."

"The solution is built very well. It's very robust and durable."

"I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates."

"They're easy to swap and move around the datacenter, for sure. They don't occupy too much space for what they offer."

More HPE Synergy pros

"We use the solution as a compute model to run the compute load on servers."

"It comes at a good price. We didn't face any problems with this product."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"One of the most valuable features of this solution is its ease of use."

"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability."

"The Lenovo Flex System is very stable."

"The functionality is reliable and requires minimal support."

More Lenovo Flex System pros

Cons

"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 user interface could be more user-friendly. It's for admins, and you should have the knowledge to use it."

"After delivering the contract, they became a little less active. So, it needs some pushing from my side sometimes."

"The expansion was complex, because adding a second frame onto the original frame caused an outage."

"The setup was a bit complex."

"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 have not improved their product since it was purchased."

"Having a seamless DR implementation would help significantly."

More HPE Synergy cons

"It does not have the same module flexibility that was present in IBM Blade. On the Blade System, I was able to choose between the Cisco module, or BMC module. Since the switch to Lenovo, I have not had the same choice of modules, only the BMC modules."

"The product could improve its integration capabilities."

"The solution could improve by providing more integration with other platforms."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"The solution's firmware and driver upgrades are a bit difficult."

"Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo."

"The user-interface needs improvement, because they have an application from which we have to manage the whole system and all the infrastructure. This application is not working at our premises, because of some problem with the hardware itself. So although we brought it with our systems, and we used it to manage all the systems: the storage, the switches, and everything, nevertheless we have to support every part alone and enter the interface in one-by-one."

"Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved."

More Lenovo Flex System cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 outright purchased Synergy."

"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."

"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."

"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."

"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."

"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."

"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

"The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier."

"We have the whole maintenance for the 3 years, starting the deployment. We also have the VMware license for 3 years and I think we have another license to buy. There are no additional costs besides licensing."

"There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."

"The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."

"We are just paying the operational cost, which is not much."

"The 14 blade server allows significant room for upscaling before having to invest in another chassis. You would have to purchase another chassis much sooner in the case of an eight or nine blade server."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Blade Servers solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about HPE Synergy?

It is a good product for hypervisors.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?

Synergy is more expensive than Cisco.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo Flex System?

Compared to its quality, the pricing is very reasonable and represents good value.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo Flex System?

Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Lenovo Flex System?

We are using Lenovo Flex System on the server for our VMware environment, which includes our VMs and all our servers, Linux and Windows. It manages the daily operation efficiently.

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 24% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 9% of the time

Super Micro SuperBlade vs HPE Synergy

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

HPE Superdome X vs Lenovo Flex System

Compared 47% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Lenovo Flex System

Compared 15% of the time

More Lenovo Flex System Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

November 2024

Download HPE Synergy product report

Buyer's Guide

Blade Servers

November 2024

Download Lenovo Flex System product report

Also Known As

No data available

Flex System Blade Servers, Flex System SN Series

Learn More

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Lenovo

Overview

HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

Flex System is Lenovo’s proven, 2nd generation blade, that efficiently runs your infrastructure applications with up to 80% better density than standard rack server deployments.

Sample Customers

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

October 2024

Free Report: HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System report.

See our list of best Blade Servers vendors.

We monitor all Blade Servers reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.