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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 resource management features are valuable."
"The biggest advantage for the clients is that it is an enterprise AI interface, which means it reduces the time to market and has support for growth from enterprise AI projects to large-scale GenAI deployments."
"Its reliability and consistency are most valuable."
"The solution has almost everything."
"PowerEdge XE is quite stable."
"In Dell PowerEdge XE-Series servers, the control is good, and they are very adaptable, affordable, and easy to learn."
"This solution has brought us a return on investment. It can store a lot of hard disks, which helps users to have a lot of capacity in smaller rack space."
"The solution is working fine; it is stable and reliable, has been stable for a long time, and there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"For us, the most valuable features are the price and density."
"It is a stable product; very reliable."
"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's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."
"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."
 

Cons

"The quality and reliability could be improved."
"Upgrading can be a bit difficult."
"Unfortunately, I have not seen a return on investment, and we don't see the ROI."
"In terms of disadvantages and improvements, we can say it has highly initial cost, as I mentioned for the MX series as well."
"Today, my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is difficult, but since one to two years ago, it has been very simple with Dell."
"What I found in Dell PowerEdge XE-Series servers is the disk reading; sometimes with heavy imagery, we find it to be slow."
"One requirement is the storage protocol, as the external storage protocol is not much used in the platform; only iSCSI is used and there is no support for FC or FC over NVMe."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"If the workload is not purely sequential, then performance in the IO is less than optimal because it's optimized for streaming processing."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."
"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."
"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell has competitive pricing."
"The pricing model is quite competitive."
"If you want an SLA for parts and equipment then you need to purchase a support agreement."
"This solution is priced very reasonably."
"You always want slightly cheaper, but overall, they are quite comparable and quite neutral."
"There are different types of licensing available, that works well for customers. The product is not very much to purchase."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
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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.