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Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series 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 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
Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
318
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (3rd), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 3.7%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 4.9%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series4.9%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.7%
Other91.4%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Tom van Mil - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Lico Innovations B.v.
Supports flexible hosting needs through seamless upgradability and strong monitoring capabilities
The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for me are the feature richness and the upgradability. I really love the way that it is so dynamically applicable for every situation, and they manage to have an all-in-one solution for every single situation. Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio. Every time Dell is at the top of its game for us, and there is just no other brand for us that is able to reach that kind of price-to-performance ratio. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of my small company, such as iDRAC. The iDRAC system is a complete feature set for managing servers and hardware technically and monitoring-wise. It really fits in our system and our ecosystem, and monitoring-wise, it is excellent. They have all these sensors available via different protocols and end points, which I love, and the ability to manage and control everything via the iDRAC interface is just a welcome bonus. In our use case, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very flexible. It is another computer which helps a lot because of the durability over time. They keep running, making scalability for getting more of those resources in our environment so easy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"Cisco has better visibility and manageability for disaster recovery."
"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."
"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."
"The product is overall stable."
"Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce unplanned production downtime because I find that Dell servers, as a whole, are very reliable given that we have several other products from Dell that we use, not only the PowerEdge."
"The reliability combined with management is what we like. The price is good too."
"The upside of Dell solutions over its competitors lie in their support; they are spread across multiple vendors in Israel, and we are really pleased with the support we're getting from the Dell provider we're working with."
"From a technical perspective, the iDRAC system's most valuable feature is its performance, while from the customer's perspective, it is the other features."
"The solution has always had very good performance."
"In the six years we have been using it, we have never had a fault/failure/malfunction hardware-wise."
"The product is very stable."
"PowerEdge Servers helped to reduce unplanned production downtime because of the configuration of our product, it is active-active. It has 99% high reliability."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The product should also be available in a standard edition or a standard license since currently there is a need to pay for an extra license, which is very expensive, especially when considering the budgeting part of our company."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"I think that's probably one of the biggest failure points with Cisco, from their documentation all the way to their products."
"I am always asked to justify why we should purchase such expensive hardware when there are other brand names available with same capacity for a lesser price."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"In terms of energy use, it takes up a lot."
"When we talk about Dell, the service support is prompt, but they take much longer to resolve particular issues."
"I do not have any input as such. There can be a bit more expansive AI portfolio, but I have not worked on any AI projects with Dell, so I might not be up to date in knowledge."
"The BIOS interface could be improved; it is very poor. PowerEdge is very good overall, but if you compare the BIOS interface with HPE, it is not very good."
"The way Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved includes addressing the current issues I am experiencing with ordering hardware, particularly with lead time and price."
"We are working with national markets, and HP Enterprise is cheaper. Dell could have made an effort there."
"We actually just have a problem with communication concerning improvements, as when new updates come out, we find out about them relatively late, which could be improved."
"Cases are typically handled well, but we do have situations on the extreme side where cases breach SLAs, which becomes a problem for us, especially regarding parts allocation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"It's expensive, they are quite pricey."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution. The most expensive server from Cisco is Cisco UCS B-Series."
"Dell is pretty good. good. I had a conversation with Dell a while ago due to a vendor. We got much better pricing from a competitor. When I looked at another company, Dell called me and asked why am I looking at someone else when they have a distributor. I told them that their pricing was not good, so Dell went back to the distributor, and we got much better pricing"
"The pricing is fair enough."
"I personally think the pricing and licensing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is actually fairly decent, though the way the business runs leads to sticker shock anytime we give them a quote."
"Compared to other vendors, the prices are much lower."
"It's a bit of a shock when you have to find the money, but the pricing is very competitive, so I'm happy with that."
"The pricing for this solution is competitive compared to others on the market."
"We do use Dell's OpenManage console. It is easy to use this console for lifecycle management or PowerEdge servers."
"The licensing comes with a warranty."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Wholesaler/Distributor
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business112
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise138
 

Questions from the Community

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...
When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Unplanned production downtime is a concern. According to our experience, when we run a high workload to a certain level, for example, more than 80% or up to 90%, the system does not perform well. T...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
We run multiple workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, including database and virtual machine workloads. Some of our multi-purpose VM workloads are running databases such as Mongo or Oracle. We serv...
 

Also Known As

UCS E-Series Servers
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Navaho,  MiroNet AG, Columbia Sportswear
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs. Dell PowerEdge R-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.