Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the Rack Servers category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.1, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. Dell Technologies holds a 25.4% mindshare in Rack Servers, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 4.1% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Read 271 Dell PowerEdge R-Series reviews

14,081 Views
13,095 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

HPE Apollo Systems

Read 24 HPE Apollo Systems reviews

2,059 Views
1,791 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

HPE Apollo Systems

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

Dell PowerEdge R-Series and HPE Apollo Systems compete in the enterprise server category. Dell seems to have an edge in pricing and ROI due to its competitive and transparent pricing structure.

Features: Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers scalability, reliability, and intuitive management through iDRAC, with lifecycle management via OpenManage and robust security. HPE Apollo Systems excel in high-density storage and compute capacity for data-heavy applications and AI workloads, providing an adaptable environment with enhanced support for parallel processing.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerEdge R-Series could benefit from better pricing strategies, cleaner interfaces, and improved compatibility with external products. HPE Apollo Systems encounter high pricing challenges and limited scalability, which could improve with more flexible infrastructure integration and enhanced performance analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerEdge R-Series is versatile in deployment options, spanning private and hybrid clouds, with consistently high-rated technical support. HPE Apollo Systems benefit from strong on-premises deployments but have slightly lower customer support ratings and sometimes require improved communication in technical setups.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerEdge R-Series is recognized for its competitive pricing structure and clear licensing, resulting in cost savings and extended ROI. In contrast, HPE Apollo Systems are perceived as more expensive while still delivering solid investment returns in specific configurations like high-density storage.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems

March 2026

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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

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Ranking in Rack Servers

1st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

271

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (2nd), Blade Servers (4th)

HPE Apollo Systems

Ranking in Rack Servers

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Density Optimized Servers (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 25.4%, down from 27.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 4.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series	25.4%
HPE Apollo Systems	4.1%
Other	70.5%

Rack Servers

Featured Reviews

Tom van Mil

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.

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Gökhan DURMAZ

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would estimate we save two to four hours a week, depending on what's happening, such as if we need to spin up a new server, which would contribute to more time if done the old way."

"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers scale with customer needs effectively."

"This solution keeps us up and running and reduces downtime. PowerEdge helped us to reduce data processing time. The PowerEdge systems management frameworks enabled us to progress towards full automation."

"Dell PowerEdge R-Series product is overall very stable, very mature, and support is excellent."

"The user interface is very simple, and the support team is always happy to answer any questions we have. They are very easy to contact."

"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned downtimes, as our downtime is nearly zero, with approximately 99.5% availability in a five-year period."

"The go-to-market implementation was pretty fast."

"I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pros

"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 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."

"We are running Apollo with SL-series servers and the best thing about them is the density of the storage area available."

"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."

"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."

"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."

"HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity."

"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."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

Cons

"I would prefer more flexibility when configuring Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Some challenges we see when looking for a server include wanting a two CPU server without necessarily needing a larger server."

"Being in Belgium, which is a small country, we might be considered too small for Dell since we only have 40 Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. This sometimes affects our ability to receive deployment support."

"They should improve the centralized management interface. When you are going to deploy something, for example, VMware or RedHat, it should be easier to deploy a lot of servers."

"The price distance increases with the higher-end, more complex servers, and there is room for improvement."

"Dell needs to focus more on SMBs, helping us get the most out of our products. For example, at events, there should be very specific SMB sessions where there are Dell technicians, engineers, and Dell executives meeting with us and finding out what we need. Dell is big on promoting the fact that they're part of our team and that they want to be our partners, and I would like to see them actually partner with us. Do it less with the big Fortune 500 companies and do a little bit more with us SMBs."

"From the host, you cannot read the external hard drive data inside a VM. They have a security restriction on it."

"If I rated the support two years ago, it would have been a high eight or maybe a nine; in the last six months, it has likely dropped to a six or seven out of ten due to a lot of churn in Dell, particularly with their sales force and engineering teams."

"We have storage and would like to manage more backups without adding extra storage devices. Maybe it's already there. I need to look at it more."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series cons

"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."

"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."

"We would like to see improved cooling because that is quite an issue. If you put that much compute power into a single rack, cooling really becomes an issue."

"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."

"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."

"Our first batch of Apollo servers that we got were so new that it was just hard to know kind of what to expect from HPE and what they wanted to deliver to us."

"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."

"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing could always be better."

"The licensing comes with a warranty."

"I'd like them to be cheaper, but that's not the world we live in and that's not where the pound is at."

"The pricing and licensing are fair."

"The pricing is great; very competitive. That's the reason we bought hundreds of them."

"It's a one-time licensing fee for the device and we pay a quota per year for the support."

"We would prefer it if the pricing were for half the cost. We have been expanding our company, and my boss stated that we must save money."

"Dell is somewhat more expensive than HPE."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pricing and cost advice

"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."

"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."

"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."

"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."

"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	98
Midsize Enterprise	59
Large Enterprise	113

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	13

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....

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

I do not see any area for improvement in Dell PowerEdge R-Series, particularly nothing very significant. I do not know what new features Dell could add to Dell PowerEdge R-Series; I have no idea, a...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?

Some features could be added to HPE Apollo Systems in the future, and I feel that some capability is needed. HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability. Two f...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?

I have been distributing this product for three years. I don't have specific use cases, and everything about the major use case for HPE Apollo Systems is good. I don't know the purpose clients are ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?

I am not using these products today, and I do not work with some specific firewalls. My company is TD Synnex, a distributor company, and I work for this company. My email is , and my first name is ...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 36% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 17% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 6% of the time

Lenovo Edge Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Synergy vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 6% of the time

Lenovo High-Density Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Moonshot vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 6% of the time

More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

March 2026

Download Dell PowerEdge R-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Apollo Systems

March 2026

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Also Known As

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo

Overview

PowerEdge R-Series delivers high performance, flexibility, and scalability for data centers. It supports demanding tasks with robust management tools and advanced cooling, providing reliability and efficiency across various workloads.

Engineered for large deployments, PowerEdge R-Series supports extensive configurations optimizing performance in data centers. With features like advanced cooling and energy-efficient architecture, it empowers organizations to manage heavy workloads while facilitating seamless scalability. It offers remote management, robust security, and integration with VMware ensuring operational excellence and high availability for business-critical applications.

What are the key features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series?

Scalability: Supports flexible configurations for diverse workloads.
Remote Management: iDRAC and OpenManage facilitate easy oversight.
Energy Efficiency: Architecture helps reduce energy consumption.
Security: Robust features ensure protected performance.
VMware Integration: Enhances manageability and productivity.

What benefits and ROI should you look for?

Performance: Handles high-performance and demanding tasks.
Flexibility: Offers easily upgradable configurations.
Reliability: Provides consistent performance with long-term support.
Efficiency: Reduces energy use and operational costs.
Ease of Use: Simplifies management and maintenance.

PowerEdge R-Series is deployed across industries for virtualization, database hosting, and application servers. It supports environments like VMware and Hyper-V for AI, cloud infrastructure, and computing tasks. Widely used by finance, healthcare, and academia, it enhances reliability and efficiency of IT infrastructure.

Dell Technologies

The HPE Apollo high-density server family is built for the highest levels of performance and efficiency. They are rack-scale compute, storage, networking, power and cooling – massively scale-up and scale-out – solutions for your big data analytics, object storage and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. From water-cooling that’s 1,000X more efficient than air, to “right-sized scaling” with 2X the compute density for workgroup and private cloud workloads, the HPE Apollo line is a dense, high-performance, tiered approach for organisations of all sizes.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco

Weta Digital

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems

March 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems

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