HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

The compared HPE Apollo Systems and HPE Synergy solutions aren't in the same category. HPE Apollo Systems is ranked #2 in DOS , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 22.6% mindshare in the category. HPE Synergy is ranked #1 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 21.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of HPE Apollo Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of HPE Synergy users who would recommend it.

HPE Apollo Systems

Read 22 HPE Apollo Systems reviews

226 Views
181 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 90 HPE Synergy reviews

2,663 Views
1,899 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

HPE Apollo Systems

HPE Synergy

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Apollo Systems and HPE Synergy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei and others in Density Optimized Servers.

To learn more, read our detailed Density Optimized Servers Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Density Optimized Servers

April 2025

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Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

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

HPE Apollo Systems

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Rack Servers (6th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)

HPE Synergy

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Blade Servers (1st), Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. HPE Apollo Systems is designed for Density Optimized Servers and holds a mindshare of 22.6%, down 30.4% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 21.8% mindshare, up 21.8% since last year.

Density Optimized Servers

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Gayan Senadheera

Director at Tyax Pvt Ltd

Offers higher capacities compared to other solutions, making it suitable for handling large storage needs

In terms of improvement, we could benefit from some training. If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo. Currently, we haven't received any specific training related to HPE Apollo throughout my career. If HPE Apollo provides training, we can share the knowledge with our partners, which could lead to more opportunities for HPE Apollo in the market. Deal protection and other support measures would also be beneficial, as they could help us achieve better results in this market.

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CarlosArdila

Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago

Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis

The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We're going to buy another Apollo 6500. We may configure it with half the number of GPUs because that may be all we need. In a sense, we can see the Apollo 6500 being so powerful that we only need half the GPU capability that we have now."

"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."

"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"

"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"

"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."

"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."

"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."

"we can use the same platform for several use cases: Hadoop, Ceph, and we are considering the server for another use case right now. It's a single solution, we only have to integrate it once and we can use it for several technologies."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

"Being able to connect my 3PAR arrays to the Synergy platform is the most valuable aspect to me."

"Improved storage, scalability, and ease-of-use."

"OneView is head and shoulders above the competition in this space."

"Composability... We show our partners the value of composability and how it can meet their needs."

"The most valuable feature is its composable infrastructure. Everything I need is in the box. Manageability is through OneView, so I can get all the information about the box itself at any time I want."

"Great flexibility including configuring the interconnects on the use of the chassis."

"Where it used to take one week to re-image or upgrade our hosts, it can now take one day."

"Orchestrating automations is great because you can connect to other tools with the REST API and automate components."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."

"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."

"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."

"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."

"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. And there is room for improvement there."

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

"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."

"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."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

"There is always room for improvement. Based on our use cases, I don't believe there are any additional features required."

"The user interface could be more user-friendly. It's for admins, and you should have the knowledge to use it."

"I would like more storage with this solution, because we still need 3PAR or other storage outside the box for the amount of data that we have."

"The speed in OneView and how it updates the entire configuration needs improvement. If they can do that, and it could be a little more clear on what impact different actions will have for certain things, that would be good."

"The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS. That would be helpful."

"Because we're using 2012, we're having issues making templates."

"I'd get the firmware to be a little more secure and a little more streamlined."

"The solution must concentrate on improving the product quality."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."

"We do CAPEX."

"We are satisfied with its price."

"The solution can be expensive because it requires both hardware and software purchases."

"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."

"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."

"Our IT infrastructure costs have gone up each year by 20 percent."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HPE Apollo?

HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products.

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What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?

HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved. The solution should provide fast delivery when it comes to replacing a particular product that is under warranty.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?

We use HPE Apollo for specific requirements of Linux servers.

See all answers

How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?

For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Synergy?

It is a good product for hypervisors.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?

Pricing in the blade server market is very competitive, with HPE offering a competitive price. Competitor products include Dell's MX series and Cisco's UCS X series.

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 35% of the time

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerEdge FX vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XE Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 32% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE Synergy

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 7% of the time

Supermicro SuperBlade vs HPE Synergy

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Apollo Systems

May 2025

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

May 2025

Download HPE Synergy product report

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo

No data available

Overview

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

HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Weta Digital

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Buyer's Guide

Density Optimized Servers

April 2025

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