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Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

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
7.0
Number of Reviews
307
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (3rd), Blade Servers (2nd)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 22.1%, down from 27.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 5.4%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series22.1%
HPE Apollo Systems5.4%
Other72.5%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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

"iDRAC is the most valuable feature because of the ease of use and management and everything that it provides is super useful. The security features that PowerEdge provides, including firmware threat detection is good."
"We are using the Dell PowerEdge Rack Server for core banking applications. It is working fine and we are happy with it."
"The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are their worldwide support, which is very accessible along with receiving assistance from professionals and specialists, and the continuous innovations that make it an amazing product in this era."
"The price-to-performance ratio of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is good, and performance is great."
"We can say that we have saved money with Dell PowerEdge servers because if we had gone with other servers over ten years, we would have had to change them."
"My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is that it's the support from Dell that really makes things easier for us."
"These web servers were easily manageable from as early as 2003. We have a very large building, and it was possible to manage them remotely in a simple way from as early as 2003."
"Customer support is usually really good for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers."
"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable. It is quite effective for the work for which we are using it. We are mainly running video servers on these, and we are quite happy with the resilience, density storage, and streaming capacity of the system."
"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"It's pretty flexible."
"It's allowed us to compete with cloud storage providers like AWS to put together a scalable on-premises solution of more than 20PB at a similar pricepoint."
"It is a stable product; very reliable."
 

Cons

"We use PowerEdge servers in conjunction with VMware, a VCF Rack, and VxRail. That has worked out well. We are using it for firmware upgrades and other similar tasks. It's a one-stop shop, but it could be better when the servers aren't on a VCF stack. Profile handling and upgrading standalone servers could improve, but they have gotten better over the years."
"The security of this solution could be improved. We have very specific needs as an engineering company and require multiple layers of security. This is not offered when implementing the Dell hardware."
"There might be room for improvement, especially in the software aspect, such as firmware updates."
"We are leaning away from this particular product because Dell's VxRail solution makes us buy four nodes at a time which is not scalable. Other solutions such as Cisco offer more innovation on this front."
"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."
"I would evaluate customer service and technical support from Dell as a challenging subject."
"The price could possibly use improvement. Dell servers are not the most affordable, and pricing is always a consideration. Otherwise, I don't see any specific areas for improvement."
"Dell's support is an area that needs improvement as their product reliability is good, but the support is not as strong as HP's."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall."
"One drawback which I had: When I needed to expand storage on the Apollo, I had significant problems getting disks for it. It was a very long wait-time. So, if I were to give any advice in regards to improving this product, I would say make more of the 8TB disks available quicker."
"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"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."
"Big stability issues with the CPU on the first generation which made them virtually unusable."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheaper than HP servers, but the price could always be better."
"The pricing could always be better."
"I am satisfied with the pricing of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and would rate the cost as seven out of ten, with ten being the best."
"It has generally been very competitive. It is not the best, but it is very competitive."
"Compared to other vendors, the prices are much lower."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable. We pay a basic premium with a military premium on top of that."
"It's pretty much on par."
"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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"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%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business110
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise128
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?
I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series can support more storage capacity, which would be great. Most other OEMs are trying to ensure you have a one-stop shop for just one server where you could get a whol...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to use it as standalone servers but also as part of some clusters. I have some OpenStack private cloud deployed on them and some Ceph software-define...
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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.