Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

The compared Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #5 in Rack Servers , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 4.5% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 22.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

Read 29 Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers reviews

3,087 Views
1,896 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 90 HPE Synergy reviews

2,798 Views
1,995 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

HPE Synergy

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers and HPE Synergy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and others in Rack Servers.

To learn more, read our detailed Rack Servers Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rack Servers

March 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 C-Series Rack Ser...

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Rack Servers (5th), Density Optimized Servers (5th)

HPE Synergy

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Blade Servers (1st), Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is designed for Rack Servers and holds a mindshare of 4.5%, down 4.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 22.5% mindshare, up 22.0% since last year.

Rack Servers

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Ehsan Emad

Head of IT at Synnapex

The VIC card is the most important feature.

I rate Cisco USC C-Series Rack Servers 10 out 10. If you plan to buy a C-Series, you should be clear about why you want to use it because the uses vary. different. Whether you're using Cisco, HPE, Dell or any other brand, it's essential to define your use case. For example, are you using it for a simulation graphics, calculations, etc.? Depending on the use case, you might want to go with a small server with more CPU. Sometimes you need a light CPU with a powerful GPU. For example, if we have a C-Series with four CPUs at the same time, or we have a server that's handled two CPUs at the same time—the purpose is crucial. C-Series is good enough compared to other competitors like HPE and the other ones. The HPE C20 is one unit and has a lot of RAM support, but the C-series is number one, in my opinion.

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CarlosArdila

Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago

Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis

The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its hardware is really reliable. We also like Cisco for its support."

"The technical support from Cisco is fine."

"The server can be configured easily."

"We have many people in my organization using Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers in the administration."

"The hardware customization capabilities are great."

"On the Cisco side, there is a benefit in terms of server management. Cisco provides UCS Manager, which is a multi-tenant site manager. We can manage multiple sites while maintaining disaster recovery, a feature not available on other platforms."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack is the use of databases, such as MySQL."

"The solution is stable."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pros

"The most valuable features are the converged network adapters."

"We like that the solution can be arranged for an all-in-one single pane of glass, something our customers find important."

"The most valuable features are the evolution of our existing HPE portfolio, the integration with our existing tool sets, and the enhanced capabilities that OneView bring."

"The scalability is very good. The ability to link chassis or frames together makes it simplistic, especially with the use of OneView."

"The solution has decreased our deployment time by 10 to 20 percent."

"The solution's greatest strengths lie in its ability to maintain a high availability and combine networking with hyper channel connectivity into a single component."

"The single pane of glass management is huge, because in all our previous systems, depending on what we were managing, we would go to a different management point. Being able to go to one spot to get everything is helpful. I find that server profile creation is a lot easier in OneView than it was previously. We are able to stay compliant with firmware and updates, because we are assigning server profiles and reapplying them when there are changes. This makes everything a lot simpler."

"Everybody noticed very large improvement in data processing. A lot of activity which took hours now takes, let's say, tens of minutes."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"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 solution can be improved by adjusting the cost."

"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 would like to see a little more integration with VMware."

"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers can improve by providing customization features to allow us to deploy them on the cloud. For example, we need VMware to allow us to accomplish a cloud deployment."

"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could improve by adding a wider portfolio because they only have two main categories, the C-220 and 240. There is no wide range of options as other solutions have, such as Dell. Additionally, if it was more flexible with the configuration it would be good."

"The only thing I would change is to provide more proactive support."

"I think the pricing is high. Cisco has to look for bundling this solutions with other applications."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers cons

"The performance could be better. The converged network cards initially didn't work. However, later on in the newer version, they came up with 50 GB network cards to replace the 20 GB ones, and it's perfectly fine now. At times, it could also be more stable."

"There is always room for improvement. Based on our use cases, I don't believe there are any additional features required."

"The main challenge we faced was that when it was installed it just did not work. There were faulty components and it took weeks of troubleshooting to find the faulty components, get them replaced. Getting help from HPE was difficult. Nobody knew about the product. It was a brand-new product and people had not been trained on it. That part was not a great experience."

"They must improve the OneView tools."

"In the past, I have had issues with configurations."

"A big thing for me is moving InfoSight for ProLiant into OneView, or at least connecting it. Today we have to use the iLO Amplifier Pack and that would require us to reconfigure iLO on every single one of the servers, independently, to get that data into InfoSight. We're really looking for a single control and management plane."

"The initial setup was complex. We had a couple of bright engineers working on it, and they figured out a lot of things that they don't know... The problem was that they couldn't find documentation easily, to walk them through setup when they just didn't know the platform."

"HPE Synergy could improve its remote support."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"We have to pay for the VMware and Cisco licenses."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis, which is only $2,000 or $3,000."

"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is approximately 20 percent more than other solutions."

"The price of the Cisco UCS C-Series Rack could improve. It's a little more expensive in comparison with Dell or HPE solutions."

"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."

"This solution is a little expensive."

"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is high."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers 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 do CAPEX."

"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."

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

"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."

"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."

"It costs us around $60,000 a year."

"The solution can be expensive because it requires both hardware and software purchases."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

University

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The C-series is the most valuable.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The solution is moderately priced.

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What needs improvement with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The improvement should be done as per customer requirements.

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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?

The pricing is relatively high compared to Cisco servers. However, due to the volume of my purchases, I get good discounts.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 58% of the time

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 24% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Moonshot vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

Dell XR2 Rugged Server vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 31% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE Synergy

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs HPE Synergy

Compared 1% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

March 2025

Download Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

March 2025

Download HPE Synergy product report

Also Known As

Unified Computing System C-Series, Cisco UCS C-Series

No data available

Overview

UCS C-Series Rack Servers deliver unified computing in an industry-standard form factor to reduce TCO and increase agility. Each server addresses varying workload challenges through a balance of processing, memory, I/O, and internal storage resources.

Cisco

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.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

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