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

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Rack Servers
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
353
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (4th), Blade Servers (2nd)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 19.9%, down from 27.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 6.0%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series19.9%
HPE Apollo Systems6.0%
Other74.1%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Oliveira - PeerSpot reviewer
Diretor at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Local servers have delivered long-term ERP and virtualization performance while reducing cloud costs
In terms of improving Dell PowerEdge R-Series, to be honest, the product has so many options that I find it very difficult to improve it in terms of product itself. Of course, there will always be some technological evolution and new components, but what the product offers in each generation, and I've already followed five or six generations of Dell PowerEdge from generation 11 up to generation 17, it has always kept pace with technological innovation. In terms of storage, it's always extremely in line with what the market is offering. In terms of memory, each new generation always follows the newest RAM trends. Processors also have both AMD and Intel options. I believe the product already has very high maturity. The availability of redundant power supplies and the availability of off-band management via iDRAC are excellent. The product is already extremely solid and reliable. The most I could perhaps say is that sometimes in some operations, I find iDRAC a bit slow, but that's a characteristic of off-band management because performance comes from a separate card that has its own processor and its own memory, so sometimes it's not as fast as I'd expect from the machine itself. Overall, there really isn't much to say because the product is extremely robust and efficient.
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

"All of the customers are pretty happy with the Dell PowerEdge Rack servers."
"The solution's stability is good...The solution's scalability is good."
"Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce unplanned production downtime, as I find their stability and reliability comparable to HP."
"We actually have not had any failures in the last 7 years regarding availability."
"The reliability and the execution of the necessary assignments are valuable."
"Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series helps my company because it saves us having to drive to our data center; if something is down, we can just remote in from the management port, which saves time and lets us get applications up faster."
"The trend towards Dell PowerEdge R-Series is due to economic aspects, reliability, maintainability, and delivery times, which are also significant factors."
"I would recommend Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers if you want reliability, sustainability, and greater performance."
"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."
"We're going to buy another Apollo 6500. We may configure it with half the number of GPUs because that may be all we need. In a sense, we can see the Apollo 6500 being so powerful that we only need half the GPU capability that we have now."
"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 this is a machine that should be considered instead of deploying multiple machines and multiple systems."
"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'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."
"It is a stable product; very reliable."
"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."
"It's pretty flexible. You can choose how much storage you put on the server. You can have one to three nodes, depending on whether you want more CPU or storage."
 

Cons

"We do encounter power supply failures from time to time."
"Pricing might be an area for improvement. There is competition, and lowering prices could be beneficial."
"It is hard to make a comparison without any technical factsheets for the other servers to compare with but like everyone else, it is about the pricing."
"If I could improve the product in any way, I would make it cheaper."
"I would like to see the pricing improved."
"The only thing that could be improved is documentation. During the installation, it would be good to have some information about how is it going."
"However, the area where we have had the most friction in costs is licensing."
"I would evaluate customer service and technical support from Dell as a challenging subject."
"The technical support for HPE Apollo Systems could be improved."
"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."
"If the workload is not purely sequential, then performance in the IO is less than optimal because it's optimized for streaming processing."
"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."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."
"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is good compared to other products."
"The solution's analytics helped to decrease production downtime by at least 30%."
"The solution’s pricing is competitive with other products."
"There is room for improvement in making it more cost-effective."
"The pricing is very good because there are a lot of types of PowerEdge Rack Servers. You have the R540, R640, and R740. The prices are very scalable through the specific server, e.g., small businesses can take the R640 while large businesses can take the R740 or R840. Thus, Dell technologies touch on every organization."
"The high cost of Dell PowerEdge Rack Server licenses is attributed to the pre-installed Windows Server operating system from Microsoft."
"We weren't paying very much, but it was at the end of the lifecycle. We are now using the VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure, and the pricing was very similar for the same amount of power but with easier automation."
"Pricing appears to be comparatively favorable, particularly within the project's scope."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"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."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Rack Servers solutions are best for your needs.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business125
Midsize Enterprise70
Large Enterprise156
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Dell PowerEdge R-Series could improve by addressing the issue of temperatures and problems with RAM memory, as those are generally where we have had issues. The modules, specifically the DIMMs, ten...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is for private cloud infrastructure. A specific example of how I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series in my environment is for private cloud provisioning for 5G....
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

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Weta Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.