HPE Apollo Systems vs Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers comparison

HPE Apollo Systems vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers

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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

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Density Optimized Servers (2nd)

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Ser...

Ranking in Rack Servers

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 4.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers is 12.2%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers	12.2%
HPE Apollo Systems	4.1%
Other	83.7%

Rack Servers

Featured Reviews

Gökhan DURMAZ

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.

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Adalberto Giaretta

Technology director at Infodive Representações e Serviços ltda

Reliable with an easy setup and good support

These are rack servers. We use them for applications. It stores everything including VM servers, application servers, Windows, et cetera The reliability is great. The solution is like any other commodity like Dell or HPE. These are all very similar. Setting up the solution is easy. It is stable.…

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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

"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."

"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."

"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."

"We are running Apollo with SL-series servers and the best thing about them is the density of the storage area available."

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

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

"For us, the most valuable features are the price and density."

"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

"They have taken a lot of technology from IBM, and IBM always delivered very powerful hardware to the IT industry compared to Dell EMC or anyone else."

"The installation and configuration are a bit difficult but the product's performance is unbeatable."

"I would say the stability of the system itself would be the biggest advantage."

"The hardware is good."

"One of the main advantages of this tool is its ease of use, as it is a GUI-based tool needing a simple and easy configuration...It is a stable solution."

"It is a scalable product."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is the easiest product to set up and maintain."

"Its performance and the local support of Lenovo in my city are the most valuable features. Its performance is the best, and its user interface is also very easy."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers pros

Cons

"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."

"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."

"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."

"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 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."

"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."

"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."

"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

"The power consumption needs to be optimized in Lenovo."

"From our side, our budgets are really not there. The availability of cash is a little bit limited. We buy as much as we can, If it was less expensive, we could buy more."

"I do not have any notes for improvements."

"It should have tools for integration with the cloud. We should be able to transmit data from our on-premises server to the servers in the cloud."

"Performance and scalability-wise, there are certain areas where the product lacks and needs improvement as it does not provide a lot of fancy features presently."

"To be frank, the technical support from Lenovo's team needs improvement. There seems to be a lack of support, and it is important for Lenovo to address this issue."

"Improvements could be made in the network cards, particularly by offering options for higher-speed cards beyond the current 10 GB."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers does a very good job. However, what could be improved can be their Configurator because it's very bulky and it sometimes gives logical errors."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers cons

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."

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

"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."

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

"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 expensive compared to other vendors."

"Its pricing is very competitive."

"In India, the solution is cheap compared to its competitors."

"The licensing cost is the same as HP. It doesn't have any additional cost. However, the price, for example, for the memory option, does not match other vendors such as HP or Dell. They should work on the pricing of Lenovo. It is a great competitor, and it should compete with the price."

"It is too expensive. Because we are a university and we have to look for our money, many times we buy some refurbished machines or equipment at reasonable prices from IBM or Lenovo. We are a little bit limited in terms of money, and we buy as much as we can. If they were cheaper, we would buy more."

"The cost of the solution depends entirely on the client. There are not any additional costs other than the standard licensing fee."

"It is the cheapest solution we have seen on the market."

"Other than the standard licensing fees there are no other additional costs. The price of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers could be better, and the availability of the solution could improve. We have been waiting two months for one server."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

University

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	13

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?

Some features could be added to HPE Apollo Systems in the future, and I feel that some capability is needed. HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability. Two f...

What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?

I have been distributing this product for three years. I don't have specific use cases, and everything about the major use case for HPE Apollo Systems is good. I don't know the purpose clients are ...

What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?

I am not using these products today, and I do not work with some specific firewalls. My company is TD Synnex, a distributor company, and I work for this company. My email is , and my first name is ...

How do Lenovo ThinkSystem rack servers compare with HPE ProLiant DL servers?

Lenovo ThinkSystem rack servers offer flexibility and efficiency in order to meet mission-critical demands. I like that Lenovo blends outstanding performance, reliability, and manageability. The bi...

When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Comparisons

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HPE Synergy vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 47% of the time

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers

Compared 32% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers

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Hypertec ORION RS vs Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers

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Product Reports

HPE Apollo Systems

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers product report

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo

SR Series, Lenovo SR Series, ThinkSystem Rack Servers, IBM Rack Servers, ThinkSystem SR Series, Lenovo Rack Servers,

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

From growing small businesses to enterprise workloads, Lenovo rack servers offer the unmatched value, flexibility and industry-leading efficiency to meet mission-critical demands with legendary quality and reliability.

Lenovo

Sample Customers

Weta Digital

immixGroup, Komsomolskaya Pravda, SRG Global, Seekr, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, jKool, Tennis Australia, VEKA, Netpoints, Gamma Powersports

HPE Apollo Systems vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers