Cisco UCS B-Series vs PowerEdge C comparison

Cisco and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. Cisco holds a 8.3% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to Dell Technologies’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS B-Series

Read 73 Cisco UCS B-Series reviews

1,135 Views
742 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

PowerEdge C

Read 28 PowerEdge C reviews

138 Views
71 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS B-Series

PowerEdge C

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

PowerEdge C and Cisco UCS B-Series compete in the server management and virtualization market. PowerEdge C seems to have the upper hand due to its affordability, ease of use, and competitive features for hybrid environments, while Cisco UCS B-Series offers significant scalability and integration benefits but is more complex and costly.

Features: PowerEdge C offers strong virtualization capabilities with advanced reliability due to Intel's RAS feature and hot-swappable nodes, making it highly efficient and user-friendly. Cisco UCS B-Series excels in scalability and integration with storage systems, offering centralized management through UCS Manager and robust remote management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: PowerEdge C needs improved pricing, more intuitive integration with AI tools for monitoring, and enhanced iDRAC application features. Cisco UCS B-Series could benefit from simpler management interfaces, improved integration tools, and reduced complexity and costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PowerEdge C is favored for diverse deployment options and good technical services, though offshored support may slow response times. Cisco UCS B-Series provides solid deployment experiences but faces challenges due to its technical intricacies, requiring improvements in support speed and regional specialization.

Pricing and ROI: PowerEdge C is competitively priced with flexible licensing, offering strong ROI. Users appreciate its affordability with bundled offerings. Cisco UCS B-Series, although more expensive with high licensing costs, provides substantial ROI for enterprise features but requires more competitive pricing for mid-market competition.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C

June 2025

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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

Cisco UCS B-Series

Ranking in Blade Servers

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

PowerEdge C

Ranking in Blade Servers

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Density Optimized Servers (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.3%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PowerEdge C is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

DavidMbugua

Group General Manager-ICT at SkyLink

Reliable product with efficient automation capabilities

Cisco UCS B-Series manages various processes, including handling payments for over 650,000 growers, running group financials, managing human resources, and operating our main ERP system, SAP. The servers' resilience was particularly impactful. Even during power outages, the servers resumed operations from the last saved point without human intervention. The enhanced processing speed also allowed us to complete tasks that took two days in just one hour. The automation capabilities enhanced efficiency and facilitated integration with our networking components, particularly since we also used Cisco switches. The servers' security was reliable, and formal training on Cisco products made management easier. I rate the product an eight.

Read full review

Al Vasek

Executive Business Development Manager, Cloud and Managed Services at Presidio Networked Solutions

Supports business apps and VDI with reliable compute

The solution is all about compute. The solutions are easy to handle, priced correctly, reliable, and dependable. Cisco is similar but more complex to configure and usually more expensive. My team supports a lot of Dell, focusing on hybrid environments like Azure Stack, splitting workloads between high compute needs in databases, which are expensive in the cloud, and other workloads in the cloud.

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

"The architecture of this solution is very valuable; it has five traffic interconnects, and uses a network highway so bandwidth is never an issue."

"The platform has valuable features for management and good monitoring tools. It provides efficient insights."

"If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions"

"The most valuable features of the Cisco UCS B-Series are reports for virtualization and the large memory it has."

"The most valuable feature is the service profile."

"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."

"The solution is stable...The solution is scalable."

"The stability provided by the product is its most valuable feature for our organization."

More Cisco UCS B-Series pros

"It's a good product. Virtualization on it is good."

"It provides the necessary infrastructure for our operations."

"The solutions are easy to handle, priced correctly, reliable, and dependable."

"The performance is good."

"The hybrid solution is much more stable than other products."

"With the tool, we can easily upgrade and ensure compatibility between operating systems, hardwares and drivers. Among other features, the hardware also stands out because it is certified and aligns with the processor manufacturers like Intel. This enables them to offer the latest options which are not available with other suppliers."

"The scalability of the product is good since it offers high performance and capacity."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

More PowerEdge C pros

Cons

"The solution is difficult to set up."

"The UCS manager interface needs to be cleaned up a bit and can be streamlined, but no major complaints."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved and made cheaper."

"The monitoring features and integration with other products can be improved."

"The high price of the solution is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"There is also a need for better local parts replacement, as HP is superior in this area."

"The product could be made more secure."

"The configuration is a little bit complicated and could be made simpler."

More Cisco UCS B-Series cons

"HP is a little bit lower in terms of price."

"The price must be improved."

"The pricing of PowerEdge solutions is very high nowadays."

"An area where the product lacks and needs to consider improvement is by allowing it to integrate with some AI tool for monitoring."

"It would be better if it worked with SMTP servers on the cloud. Right now, it only allows notifications via the SMTP server. In the next release, I would like to have a better processor."

"For improvements, the iDRAC application isn't very intuitive to handle."

"The solution’s pricing could be cheaper."

"The need to update the firmware and check if there is any bug in the product is one of the areas where Dell PowerEdge C falls short and needs to make improvements."

More PowerEdge C cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."

"The product is expensive."

"The licensing cost is a little bit expensive because by default, it depends on your fabric interconnect model. Most of the time, however, Cisco provides a lot of promotions to the customers, so the cost can be waived for many projects. The price of the chassis itself is fair."

"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."

"It is highly-priced."

"Every three years, I need to renew my license and support the product...Every time I have to opt for the renewal of the license, I am shocked to learn about the increase in the price of the product."

"A physical licensing fees needs to be paid."

"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution on a yearly basis. Price-wise, it is an expensive product"

More Cisco UCS B-Series pricing and cost advice

"The price could be reduced."

"We buy licenses for the solution's advanced features."

"The cost depends on the configuration."

"The licensing cost of PowerEdge C is very high."

"PowerEdge C is a reasonably priced product, and the pricing depends on how many years you need the product. The cost also includes the support."

"There is a need to pay towards the annual subscription-based licensing model offered by the solution. The product is moderately priced. Price is a critical issue, and it is always good to have moderately priced solutions."

"PowerEdge C is a product that is priced at a medium range, so it is not too expensive."

"Despite the slightly higher price, we prefer Dell due to the high quality of their products."

More PowerEdge C pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS B-Series?

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?

The licensing cost for three years, followed by an AMC for two years, is reasonable. However, the management software, Cisco One, is priced a bit high but still considered reasonable. No additional...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?

Last year, we faced challenges with firmware upgrades, but they were quickly resolved with assistance from Cisco TAC.

See all answers

What do you like most about PowerEdge C?

The solution provides good support and service.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PowerEdge C?

PowerEdge is quite a costly solution, and I would rate the pricing around seven or eight on a scale from one to ten with ten being the most expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with PowerEdge C?

With reference architectures like VX rack, the update process is quite painful. They could automate or simplify it more. There are prerequisites to go through, and that's usually the only time-cons...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 35% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 18% of the time

Supermicro SuperBlade vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 17% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 16% of the time

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

Compared 16% of the time

More Cisco UCS B-Series Competitors

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Compared 54% of the time

Cray CS-Storm vs PowerEdge C

Compared 33% of the time

HPE Apollo Systems vs PowerEdge C

Compared 13% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series

June 2025

Download Cisco UCS B-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Blade Servers

May 2025

Download PowerEdge C product report

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series

No data available

Overview

Based on Intel Xeon processor E7 and E5 product families, Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers work with virtualized and non-virtualized applications to increase: Performance, Energy efficiency, Flexibility and Administrator productivity.

Cisco

PowerEdge C help you to maximize hyperscale performance with up to 4 independent server nodes, flexible storage and shared infrastructure in a compact 2U chassis.

Dell Technologies

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

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C

June 2025

Free Report: Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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