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Eaton UPS vs Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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

Eaton UPS
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Power Solutions (1st)
Schneider Electric-APC Smar...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1575009 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Services Manager at a government with 201-500 employees
Reliable solution, available and notifying us whenever power outages have happened
The purchasing experience and delivery were all excellent. They were very straightforward and easy to do. The actual installation was a little more complex. The installation was a little bit different from the purchasing and delivery stages, only because I hadn't ever really been involved in replacing a UPS before. It seemed more cumbersome than I thought it would be. However, I didn't really have anything to compare it to. The difficulty seemed to come from having to hire a contractor to do the electrical work and prep, and then have him plug it in and set it up. Then, a person from Eaton had to actually come out and turn it on. That was the unusual part for me. I would have assumed that an Eaton person would have installed it and plugged it in. I'm not sure that reflects badly on Eaton. It's just the way things are done, but it was new to me. In terms of our staff involved with the units, two technical services managers were the main ones who worked with Eaton, when spec'ing out the batteries.
Reasonably priced, simple to install, and responsive technical support
Mexico's situation is too difficult. While there may be many complaints, many projects may be canceled because funds are not currently available. I want to improve a lot of things, but the main point is money. The vendor could be better, but the point is that we don't have the right vendor in Guadalajara. Guadalajara is a small town in Mexico, and there are no expert engineers in that field here. We need to hire people from Monterey, and from Mexico, which is why the solution may be expensive. We don't want to buy a cheaper solution because cheaper isn't always better. We have no desire to save money, we would like a solution. Schneider's vendor, I believe, needs to be more involved with the customer. We have to constantly look for them because they don't come to me. I have to go there, and I don't want to. I don't want to waste time looking for a vendor. We require immediate attention. It should be easier to contact technical support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The fact that they're reliable and that they notify us whenever the line power drops are the only things we really need. All of our UPS's have been available and up whenever power outages have happened."
"It's also very important that the solution is a three-phase UPS. Three-phase cuts down on power usage, which cuts down on our electrical bill, compared to a single-phase product."
"The most valuable feature is the control... we couldn't live life without [PredictPulse]. It does add a level of comfort knowing that PredictPulse is telling us about potential errors before they happen. My preference is to keep it in ESS mode. It saves me a good amount of money."
"Scalability has been pretty good. We were able to increase the battery. We only installed one battery cabinet, then we added a second one for additional capacity later on. That was a nice feature that others haven't been able to do."
"The two things that I like are the ESS, its related components, and the bypass sync, which means if there's a problem with the UPS I can mechanically wrap around it without going to static bypass. Eaton has one of the few units on the market that will do that."
"The visibility the PredictPulse service provides into our UPS equipment through the reporting is very good. It gives us very high visibility. We can go into the card and look at every parameter, all the settings, all the values. There are several tabs we can look at. We get a very good understanding of what the unit is doing, all remotely. It's very good."
"Our Eaton UPSs help with business continuity. I have a reliable system in place that I know that I can trust."
"VMMS is a good feature. There are multiple charging units inside each UPS. For example, on my 9395 I have three to four charging units and the unit will scale down. Let's say I've got a megawatt of power. If I'm only running 200 Kw I can drop the charging units down and rotate through the charging units to reduce energy. They do all that."
"We have not had a lot of issues over the many years we have been using the solution."
"You can scale it by adding batteries."
"Stability is one of the key points. The durability and lifetime of the product are also notable."
"I like it because we don't have any problems."
 

Cons

"We do not use Eaton's remote monitoring, we use StruxureWare. We do use all of Eaton's web interface cards and their SNMP polling, but it's actually going to a Schneider product. Eaton makes something similar, it just wasn't as intuitive."
"They could enhance their software, but overall, it's a good solution."
"I do like the ESS mode which I operate with the 9395s. However, I've got an issue with one of my UPS strings here in Denver: That ESS mode is too sensitive to utility noise. So the utility shows no outages but I've got the UPS switching it in and out of ESS mode."
"Outside of a full-service contract, my only concern is technician availability for repairs. Where we don't have a full-service contract with them, which unfortunately is the larger portion of our equipment from them, we're just like anybody else, waiting for a slot for a technician to arrive."
"If they could reduce the footprint even more, that would be great. And they could always make heat dissipation better."
"I would like to see there is a little more clarity on what the issue is on the notifications that we receive. This would make it easier for us. What we have to do now is sometimes go to the UPS to figure out exactly what the issue is, because it's not always clear."
"The external monitoring solution could use further enhancements. I'm thinking of business continuity. If an internal legacy monitoring solution goes down, and it has no one to connect to the outside world, then it can't send out an alert. How are we going to be able to determine that there is a problem with that UPS if it loses network connectivity?"
"The battery life of the older batteries is the only thing that has been our issue up to this point. Luckily, the Cellwatch system that is on there identifies it and notifies us ahead of time when we should get them changed pretty quickly. This may be addressed with the lithium-ion batteries, but it is too early in our ownership of a UPS with a lithium-ion battery to know."
"We have been having some issues with the solutions controller and we are having problems finding spare parts."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The duration of the batteries could be much better."
"Schneider's vendor, I believe, needs to be more involved with the customer. We have to constantly look for them because they don't come to me. I have to go there, and I don't want to. I don't want to waste time looking for a vendor. We require immediate attention."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The UPSs are saving us approximately $50,000 a year."
"The cost per unit, as a rough estimate, is $300,000 per UPS 750-block."
"I have a maintenance contract with Eaton, which has been very good. The notifications that we receive, we use email to my team, and they work well."
"We use their service plan, which includes parts so we don't do the maintenance on it ourselves. We have a service plan that we use, then they do all the maintenance and periodical maintenance (PM) work. If there are any hardware failures, then they also do the work. Therefore, it's a hardware/software support contract that includes labor."
"When you bid them out, they're all within a single-digit percentage point of each other... The cost of Eaton's service is competitive because we bid it out. I bid the service for all my units on campus: APCs, Lieberts, Eatons, because we've got a big hodgepodge of everything. Eaton won on price."
"For our used case, 12kW is good. It has worked very well for us. They can be a lot bigger and they can be smaller, but the 12kW seems to be just about right for us. It has a good price point."
"It has been more of a cost of doing business and maintaining our systems. We use it more as an insurance policy to ensure that our medical records stay up and running. The loss of revenue would have a bigger impact to our organization if our systems were not up and operating. An outage over a 24-hour period could easily be in the $300,000 range, which would be pretty substantial. We are a three million square foot hospital with 380 beds, so it would impact us quickly."
"I have mixed feelings about the pricing and licensing. I believe that when you sell a UPS, and considering the UPS is a lifeline to a lot of the major corporations, the monitoring solution should be part of the package automatically, out-the-door. If you have to raise that price on the UPS an extra $5,000, then do so at that moment. Don't have that as an extra offer after the UPS has been sold. I believe that all UPSs need to have high availability, all the latest software installed, and be ready to go out-the-door."
"It is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
No data available
 

Also Known As

Eaton Powerware, Powerware 9300 Series
Smart-UPS VT
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gamatronic
The Boston Red Sox