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Cisco UCS B-Series vs Cisco UCS E-Series Servers comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

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

Cisco UCS B-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers
Ranking in Blade Servers
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 7.3%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 3.8%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS B-Series7.3%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.8%
Other88.9%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

MB
Head of IT Operations at NCC BANK LIMITED
Efficient server management reduces costs and supports seamless operations
Cisco UCS B-Series has reliably sustained smooth operations without the need for significant maintenance. Its administration capabilities provide easy access to performance reports, logs, and utilization data, which are essential for effective server management. Additionally, the integration capabilities are seamless, and the power consumption and heat generation are low, resulting in reduced cooling costs and increased financial benefits.
AK
Solution Architect at COPYCAT LIMITED
Automation and integration capabilities streamline IT infrastructure management
The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is the Cisco interface. The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team. Pricing is acceptable, and these servers have had a significant impact on cost savings and operational efficiency. The integration with Cisco routers simplifies the IT infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Running in the VCE Vblock gives us the flexibility to deploy a large virtual workload of servers."
"The scalability is good because it comes with Fabric Interconnects, and you can directly add more blades as you go. Therefore, scalability is not a problem."
"Great security and functionality."
"Combined with Nexus switches, it provides us with a versatile solution for a virtual platform including SAN fabric capability built in, networking flexibility and SDN, and is better to management."
"Dell has a huge portfolio of products."
"It's modular."
"Having experience with the product for over 5 years, the ROI is definitely over our expectations."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is scalable."
"What I can advise other prospective customers is that they should not worry about Cisco's support, stability, and performance."
"The product is overall stable."
"The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team."
"The Cisco chassis is very easy to configure and any network engineer or expert can configure the solution and easily integrate it with the chassis."
"Cisco UCS E-Series Servers have been reliable, and it took almost five years for any hardware failure, which was only about a $100 repair, so nothing too major."
"Overall, the Cisco chassis is pretty good, pretty stable and easier to configure as compared to HP and others."
"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
 

Cons

"This model does not support virtualization of the switch."
"The graphic code that UCS can support is limited and less accessible than other systems."
"The management interface needs a lot of improvement. As it is right now, it's a pain to use. It's not user-friendly."
"HTML5 interface is a much needed improvement over the old Java interface, but still needs a little work."
"The main issue with this solution is that it is quite vendor-restricted, meaning that when we use third party software, we cannot use all of the available configuration tools or pre-validated design features."
"The solution’s technical support could be better."
"Cisco TAC has been phenomenal in most cases, but we have had a couple of minor instances where the issue took a bit longer than it should have to be resolved."
"The price of this product is too high. They should work to make it more affordable."
"One thing that could be improved is the cost - it is very high for this Blade chassis as compared to other vendors, especially in Asia."
"One thing that could be improved is the cost - it is very high for this Blade chassis as compared to other vendors. Especially in Asia. Asian customers mostly prefer a cost effective, cheaper solution."
"I think that's probably one of the biggest failure points with Cisco, from their documentation all the way to their products."
"The biggest pain point for us is the matrix for the firmware upgrades. It is a pain. You look at that thing, you might as well be reading Greek. It would be a whole lot better if they could clean up their documentation on it."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco products are at the high end in terms of cost, but everything is included with the licensing fees."
"The product is expensive."
"Pricing with Cisco is very high."
"Compared to the more in-demand hyper-converged environments such as Nutanix or DVX rail, Cisco UCS B-Series is even more costly due to the expensive fabric interconnects."
"It is expensive."
"The product cost is high."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution on a yearly basis. Price-wise, it is an expensive product"
"The price of this solution is a little bit higher, but given that this system is Cisco, it feels more secure and dependable."
"The solution is expensive."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution. The most expensive server from Cisco is Cisco UCS B-Series."
"The product is expensive."
"It's expensive, they are quite pricey."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?
Comparing Cisco UCS B-Series with traditional servers, while its initial cost may be slightly higher, it is not as expensive as Oracle Exadata, making it a worthwhile investment. It pays off in the...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
There is a need for Cisco UCS B-Series to evolve and scale vertically, particularly with the increasing data demands and the integration of AI, ensuring the solution remains certified and capable u...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS B-Series?
The Cisco UCS B-Series servers are used to run backend databases ranging from small, medium, to large, running different versions of RDBMS such as Oracle, SQL, MySQL. It also includes cloud databas...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
The pricing of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is okay, costing around 30,000 per year. Support is included in this cost.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
I would like to see improvements in VMware integration with Cisco, especially in terms of documentation and integration tools. Support of NVIDIA integration would also make it better.
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
I use Cisco UCS E-Series Servers ( /products/cisco-ucs-e-series-servers-reviews ) for managing our IT infrastructure and supporting AI-driven projects. The integration with Cisco routers simplifies...
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
UCS E-Series Servers
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Anonymous Banking Group, Artoni Transporti, Bellevue, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Hertz, Houston Methodist, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co.KG, Outscale, Sony Corporation, Talbots
Navaho,  MiroNet AG, Columbia Sportswear
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Cisco UCS E-Series Servers and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.