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

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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 September 2026, in the Density Optimized Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is 15.1%, up from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 21.2%, up from 19.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems21.2%
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers15.1%
Other63.7%
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 product doesn't take up too much space on the rack and I like that."
"The VIC card is the most important feature."
"I would recommend this solution to others because it saves a lot of space and it's very scalable."
"It was simple to install and has given us no problems."
"Cisco rack servers are very easy to integrate with other products from different vendors."
"I can't think of any features which need to be added to the solution, all of them are good."
"The intersite options for management make life easier for the operations and management teams because it's a single point of management for the whole server infrastructure."
"We have many people in my organization using Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers in the administration."
"The most valuable feature is the amount of programming storage available."
"Tech support has been outstanding."
"HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity."
"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."
"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."
"It is a stable product; very reliable."
"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"Stability has been extremely good."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a little more integration with VMware."
"The only thing I would change is to provide more proactive support."
"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where Cisco needs to focus on making some improvements."
"There is very little scalability for the cluster. If you need a higher availability, there is a user limitation. So that is the low side."
"I think the pricing is high. Cisco has to look for bundling this solutions with other applications."
"The hard drive of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not very good. I have already replaced three of them."
"The C-Series is not designed to be as scalable. They are designed to have enough RAM and enough CPU on their own side. If you want scalability, it's better to choose the B-Series— the Blade Servers — because those are much more scalable with Fabric Interconnect."
"The capacity is quite small, so I need the CPU performance to be a bit higher. The memory is also limited, and we cannot upgrade more."
"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."
"There is a shared battery for all cache controllers in the node. When you have to replace that element, you have to take down all three nodes and not just one."
"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."
"We are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."
"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."
"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."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for Cisco is a bit higher than its competitors. We paid 40k for one server."
"My company has an agreement with Cisco to get discounted rates. It is one of the reasons why we chose the product."
"The solution is moderately priced."
"The solution requires an annual licensing fee."
"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is high."
"​Best to buy all the blades configured for the same purposes of load balancing and failover or load shifting.​"
"This solution is a little expensive."
"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
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: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.