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Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems 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

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series
Ranking in Rack Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 September 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is 3.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 5.7%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series3.3%
HPE Apollo Systems5.7%
Other91.0%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer991842 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director, Information Technology at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Reliable data platform has supported continuous R&D and 24/7 manufacturing operations
The after-sales support is one factor for improvement, and the cost to extend the support and warranty of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is the main factor in whether we want to continue using the product or transition to another solution in the future. Dell PowerEdge XE-Series consumes a lot of power, so we have to really plan before deploying more Dell PowerEdge XE-Series in our environment; that is something we have to consider. Based on my experience so far, I am quite satisfied and do not see any other improvements needed for Dell PowerEdge XE-Series. My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is that they are a bit costly. If Dell can work on the pricing, that would be good, making Dell more competitive over other products.
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

"The main benefits of using Dell PowerEdge XE-Series were good resources, cost optimization, and a reliable product."
"Running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge XE-Series has been good value and reliable, with no issues so far."
"Its reliability and consistency are most valuable."
"Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is quite stable, as once all firmware and drivers are in place with the signed firmware, the system barely goes down and has high availability, 24/7 for 365 days, most of the time without any power failure, and even when running heavy workloads with either GPUs or storage, the system remains stable without issues."
"One of the most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge XE Servers is the ease of fixing issues if there are any."
"The most beneficial features in Dell PowerEdge XE-Series, in terms of capabilities and functions, are the maturity of the management, particularly iDRAC, and from an out-of-band management perspective, I rate iDRAC as the best."
"In general, it works well. We haven't had issues."
"The resource management features are valuable."
"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"We had a PoC, as I said, and we were happy with it and decided to implement it, as it satisfies all our needs and is the perfect solution."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"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."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"It is a stable product; very reliable."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
 

Cons

"For Dell PowerEdge XE Servers, particularly for standalone servers, extendability would be a great improvement."
"The big problem with Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is the volatility in pricing, so trying to find stability is pretty important to us."
"What I found in Dell PowerEdge XE-Series servers is the disk reading; sometimes with heavy imagery, we find it to be slow."
"It should be easier to extend PowerEdge XE servers. We haven't architected them with an eye toward scalability. They have a fixed number of slots for hard drives, which is enough for our present use case, However, we would have more options if we could extend that. We could deploy the servers in a broader range of use cases with different requirements. It's fine for our current deployment with only a few thousand users. We're exploring other solutions like such as VxRail or PowerFlex for larger public-facing use cases."
"Dell PowerEdge XE Servers can improve by adapting HCI technology."
"In future releases, there should be more support options for the latest processor."
"The quality and reliability could be improved."
"It is mostly stable, but the usual problem would be, for example, upgrading to a newer version of VMware or dealing with compatibility issues during the process."
"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."
"The solution could improve the hardware, such as the motherboard or servers. We have had hardware faults in the past."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"We are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."
"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."
"We could, perhaps, use more GPUs in the future, go from eight to 16 GPUs per instance. That could run head-to-head against the DGX-1, the DGX-2 that NVIDIA has developed in their own chassis. That would be interesting to see."
"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is priced very reasonably."
"If you want an SLA for parts and equipment then you need to purchase a support agreement."
"The pricing model is quite competitive."
"You always want slightly cheaper, but overall, they are quite comparable and quite neutral."
"Dell has competitive pricing."
"There are different types of licensing available, that works well for customers. The product is not very much to purchase."
"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."
"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."
"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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
8%
University
6%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?
TCO percentage shows up to 73, 75, 80% improvement in power efficiency.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?
In future updates of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series, I would appreciate dashboard optimization and AI integration. I am not utilizing any AI functionality of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series at this time.
What is your primary use case for Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?
I have used Dell PowerEdge XE-Series, which is a bit different series of rack server. The primary purposes of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series in my case are for servers, as we host multiple applications. ...
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

PowerEdge XE Servers
HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Epsilon, ROZETTA CORP, JIGUANG, RACKSPACE, NEW BELGIUM BREWING
Weta Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.