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HPE Apollo Systems vs IBM Power 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

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)
IBM Power Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 5.7%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Power Systems is 6.4%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Power Systems6.4%
HPE Apollo Systems5.7%
Other87.9%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Foluso  Jibowo - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Hiperdist Ltd
Has empowered enterprises with secure and cost-effective solutions
When discussing disadvantages, I do not see many areas for improvement because we have received good testimonies from every client. IBM gives customers peace of mind. One challenge, which I would not really call a challenge, is that initially people have the notion that IBM Power Systems is quite expensive. However, IBM does not lose deals based on price. This is a message we need to keep communicating to people who feel that IBM is on the high side in terms of cost. We encourage them to have a discussion with us about their total cost of ownership over three or five years. There is a notion in the market that IBM is expensive, which is false. However, once we engage and show them their return on investments and their total cost of ownership savings, they tend to embrace IBM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's pretty flexible. You can choose how much storage you put on the server. You can have one to three nodes, depending on whether you want more CPU or storage."
"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."
"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable."
"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."
"It's very hard for a professor to amass the supercomputing resources, so I've been very fortunate to have that level of supercomputing at our disposal and that has really enabled us to do the world's leading superhuman AI research."
"Not having to manage traditional NAS has made a big difference."
"We are running Apollo with SL-series servers and the best thing about them is the density of the storage area available."
"The performance and stability are great."
"I can have what they call multi-tenancy, meaning that I can have multiple tenants within the same server."
"The stability and scalability is why you invest in IBM i."
"The uptime feature is great."
"We have had a good experience with the technical support team at IBM."
"Primarily the reliability."
"Power runs our resilient data systems, our high-end databases, stuff that can't go down."
"It helps in delivering mission critical applications, very high reliability."
 

Cons

"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."
"There is a shared battery for all cache controllers in the node. When you have to replace that element, you have to take down all three nodes and not just one."
"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 solution could improve the hardware, such as the motherboard or servers. We have had hardware faults in the past."
"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 struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."
"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."
"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."
"They can make it easier to do the patching and iFixes, which is especially important now, with all of the security issues."
"The power supplies often need replacing."
"We experience issues every once in a while. I think it's more due to our applications and how we're licensed that sometimes we have to get a little crafty there."
"Everyone likes speed. Not that speed has been an issue up until now but you can never be too fast."
"Initially when sizing it, people perceive IBM Power Systems as quite expensive."
"Better manage heterogeneous footprints of all the different operating systems that are out there across one common interface."
"There are improvements that can be made on the technical side."
"The price is a bit high and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"Power Systems is very cheap and provides good value for money."
"The pricing of the solution is very good because we can beat any other competitor with the pricing. Lately, they have offered good pricing for their customer."
"Its price is too high."
"The licensing costs are okay. With IBM Power Systems, it's inclusive, so you can differentiate the price of the hardware from the software itself."
"Price-wise, I rate the solution a five out of ten."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The machine is good and has a comparatively good price."
"It is designed for a large workload, as opposed to a small workload. For our circumstances, and even as an independent, I can't buy a Power system to experiment on. It can't happen. You cannot buy them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise42
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What needs improvement with IBM Power Systems?
In my opinion, the product can be improved by maintaining it and not sunsetting it; that would be my recommendation for IBM. I used to work for IBM for nineteen years, and I know, unfortunately, I ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Power Systems?
I am an architect and system administrator, and I'm responsible for anything related to IBM Power Systems. In IBM Power Systems, I have found a lot of valuable features such as LVM, TCP, ODM, RSCT,...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Power Systems?
I would recommend IBM Power Systems to others. I have given this review a rating of ten out of ten.
 

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
IBM OpenPOWER LC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
Cipher
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Apollo Systems vs. IBM Power Systems and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.