No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 C-Series Rack Ser...
Ranking in Rack Servers
7th
Ranking in Density Optimized Servers
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
9th
Ranking in Density Optimized Servers
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Density Optimized Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is 15.2%, up from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 21.4%, up from 20.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems21.4%
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers15.2%
Other63.400000000000006%
Density Optimized Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Berthold Manz - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at ExperTeach GmbH
Seamless server transitions enhance IT infrastructure for AI projects and improve management capabilities
If you are integrated into the Cisco management solution, it is very easy to handle. The performance aspects of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are very strong. The ability to move from one server to another without changing anything is excellent. We can transfer all the identity of the servers between the servers.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The first advantage of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is that you don't need to buy physical hardware like I used to have to do for each application."
"In summary, this is a good product and it's sustainable."
"It was simple to install and has given us no problems."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack is the use of databases, such as MySQL."
"When you hear the brand Cisco, you don't really need to recommend it."
"The Cisco UCS Servers are very dependable, and they're very reliable."
"The solution is reliable and easy to use."
"The C-series is number one, in my opinion."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"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, and it's been a pretty good product so far."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"It's very hard for a professor to amass the supercomputing resources, so I've been very fortunate to have that level of supercomputing at our disposal and that has really enabled us to do the world's leading superhuman AI research."
"I find HPE Apollo Systems to be scalable and efficient for AI initiatives, and the environmental efficiency has a significant impact on operational costs."
"We previously used the DL380s; compared to those, Apollo has roughly four times the amount of space per server, which means we can really do a lot."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"It is not really an improvement, but the solution is expensive."
"The solution needs more capacity and more scalability."
"There is room for better integration with other brands."
"On the contact center and video conferencing, I would definitely like to see more AI features. The AI features are key for us. You will find a lot of them in the cloud-based solution, but in the on-premises solution, they're hardly there. I would like to see the same AI features that are there in the cloud-based Cisco UC."
"In the version we need to use, the manager is still reliant on a full Java install on a Windows OS. This is inconvenient and problematic if you have multiple management tools on different versions of Java or if you move to a machine without the appropriate Java environment."
"Some customers have complained about delivery time. So, the main weakness is the lead time."
"I think the pricing is high. Cisco has to look for bundling this solutions with other applications."
"Technical support could be more responsive."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"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."
"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."
"Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall."
"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."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for Cisco is a bit higher than its competitors. We paid 40k for one server."
"The server itself isn't costly at all, but the CPU and the RAM can be pretty expensive. You can buy a UCS for $2,000, but the RAM and CPU can cost up to $80,000. The most expensive asset is the intel processor, but it depends on how many cores you want and the technology you want to use on your CPU, like Hyper-V, etc."
"The pricing is expensive."
"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."
"The solution is expensive and I give the price a four out of ten."
"My company has an agreement with Cisco to get discounted rates. It is one of the reasons why we chose the product."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"The price of the solution could be better when compared to other solutions. However, when we purchased the solution we received Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers in a bundle with other hardware, such as IP phones and networking switches."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Density Optimized Servers solutions are best for your needs.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not troublesome, but it is confusing. It takes a lot of time to navigate licensing and to work through ...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
I think Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could be improved, but I'm not really a forward thinker; everything works pretty well with how we're using it. It's not really an improvement, but the soluti...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
My main use case for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is hypervisors, using them as a hypervisor.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Unified Computing System C-Series, Cisco UCS C-Series
HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Artoni Transporti, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, City of Mississauga, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Kind en Gezin, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Nationwide, Quest, Talbots, University of St. Gallen
Weta Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.