HPE Synergy vs Lenovo Flex System comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while Lenovo is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 18.8% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to Lenovo’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

HPE Synergy

Read 91 HPE Synergy reviews

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2,135 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Lenovo Flex System

Read 10 Lenovo Flex System reviews

393 Views
393 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Lenovo Flex System

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

HPE Synergy and Lenovo Flex System are contenders in the enterprise IT infrastructure space. HPE Synergy, with its composable infrastructure, leads in flexibility and resource optimization, whereas Lenovo Flex System is recognized for user-friendliness and performance.

Features: HPE Synergy is noted for its composable infrastructure, enabling dynamic resource reallocation and efficient utilization. It integrates central management through HPE OneView and supports enhanced deployment with Image Streamer. Lenovo Flex System prioritizes user-friendliness and performance, offering high server density and scalable network and storage capabilities.

Room for Improvement: HPE Synergy needs better integration with third-party hardware and improved compatibility with non-HPE platforms. Users call for streamlined management and faster firmware updates. Enhancements in network speed and storage sharing could enhance its competitiveness. Lenovo Flex System could improve by increasing module flexibility and cloud-native app compatibility while refining firmware and driver update processes and support for future technologies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Synergy supports flexible deployment options across on-premises and hybrid clouds and is backed by HPE's extensive support network, though experiences vary with issue complexity. Lenovo Flex System focuses on straightforward deployment in on-premises and private cloud environments, lacking the comprehensive hybrid support of HPE but still providing reliable technical assistance.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Synergy often involves higher initial costs but offers long-term savings via operational efficiency and reduced hardware needs, yielding a substantial ROI in complex deployments. Lenovo Flex System presents competitive pricing, appealing for budget-conscious clients needing scalable solutions, though Synergy's broader platform may promise greater savings and ROI over time.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

September 2025

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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 Synergy

Ranking in Blade Servers

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Lenovo Flex System

Ranking in Blade Servers

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Synergy is 18.8%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo Flex System is 3.0%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Synergy	18.8%
Lenovo Flex System	3.0%
Other	78.2%

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

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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Syed Ibrahim

Assistant Manager Systems - IT Infrastructure at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Provides a high initial ceiling before upscaling is required, user-friendly and rich in resources, but has occasional stability issues

The solution should come with cloud native applications to prepare for cloud based solutions. Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem. The level of customer support needs to be improved. There is currently an issue with Lenovo switching out SAN switches from the chassis, which will cause problems for people who already have a set up with the SAN switch connected to the central storage. This could require an entirely different network, adding an additional cost for the user.

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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

"Valuable features include its dependability, reliability, and the ease of managing the system."

"They're easy to swap and move around the datacenter, for sure. They don't occupy too much space for what they offer."

"In terms of managing our IT landscape, it helps by reducing complexity... We've taken one of our virtualization guys and turned him into a Synergy guy, and he's been able to understand the networking, he's been able to understand the OneView, he's been able to understand the Synergy. He manages all of those rather than our having to have multiple teams associated with it."

"The solution has decreased the deployment time for a new blade, saving us three hours."

"All components in the HPE Synergy solution are redundant; if we experience any downtime in a component, a redundant one is available in our Synergy frame, therefore the downtime and stability for HPE Synergy solution are very good and highly appreciated."

"In the data center, you see customers with a lot of blade enclosures and a lot of servers, and this solution works fine."

"I love the satellite architecture for the Virtual Connect. I think this is great. I love the storage drawer, which you can present volumes to any compute node within the same frame."

"The wireless mounting system is excellent. We can use the monitor over the Internet and perform troubleshooting remotely with the connection to SQL. It includes a comprehensive monitoring tool. It offers many features, allowing us to update, manage, maintain, and troubleshoot the system efficiently."

More HPE Synergy pros

"The product is very user-friendly and has many resources at the enterprise level."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"One of the most valuable features of this solution is its ease of use."

"The stability and speed are always good. The processor is good and it's still working with our loads."

"The functionality is reliable and requires minimal support."

"It comes at a good price. We didn't face any problems with this product."

"The Lenovo Flex System is very stable."

"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability."

More Lenovo Flex System pros

Cons

"I would like the ability to take the storage tray that is in a chassis and share it out to multiple chassis, not just the servers within the same chassis. This would be more efficient with resources."

"I would definitely like to see them fix the firmware updates on all the blades. No matter what operating system it is running on, make sure I can do the firmware as well as the software for those firmware components at the same time. I don't want to have to rely on an external product. Let's bring that product inside the menu so that I have a better experience with updates."

"We haven't seen any ROI, and it hasn't reduced our cost of operations."

"The solution should support Cisco or other vendor interconnect models."

"We had an issue during the initial setup with the 40 Gigabyte cards. They weren’t working, so we had to work really closely with HPE support to get them to work."

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

"Sometimes there are firmware or software difficulties when connecting between networks or with storage."

"If it would be possible to connect clusters of five with other clusters, so that they could all share resources, that would change the game for us. It would make it a viable solution for us."

More HPE Synergy cons

"I had some difficulties with the initial setup."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo."

"It does not have the same module flexibility that was present in IBM Blade. On the Blade System, I was able to choose between the Cisco module, or BMC module. Since the switch to Lenovo, I have not had the same choice of modules, only the BMC modules."

"The user-interface needs improvement, because they have an application from which we have to manage the whole system and all the infrastructure. This application is not working at our premises, because of some problem with the hardware itself. So although we brought it with our systems, and we used it to manage all the systems: the storage, the switches, and everything, nevertheless we have to support every part alone and enter the interface in one-by-one."

"The solution could improve by providing more integration with other platforms."

"The product could improve its integration capabilities."

"Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem."

More Lenovo Flex System cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."

"The licensing is more around the software for RGS, because we are deploying bare metal installs. It is mainly the operating system and any lights-out management. So, licensing is minimum. We are licensing it annually."

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

"The price point is a little high. We were able to get a good deal on a promotion, to go with it. It would be nice to see the prices come down a little bit."

"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."

"Nutanix was really hard to implement, and it was very pricey compared to what we get from Synergy."

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

"We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

"The 14 blade server allows significant room for upscaling before having to invest in another chassis. You would have to purchase another chassis much sooner in the case of an eight or nine blade server."

"The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."

"We are just paying the operational cost, which is not much."

"The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier."

"There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."

"We have the whole maintenance for the 3 years, starting the deployment. We also have the VMware license for 3 years and I think we have another license to buy. There are no additional costs besides licensing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	56

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

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...

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

As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...

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What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?

In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo Flex System?

Compared to its quality, the pricing is very reasonable and represents good value.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo Flex System?

Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Lenovo Flex System?

We are using Lenovo Flex System on the server for our VMware environment, which includes our VMs and all our servers, Linux and Windows. It manages the daily operation efficiently.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 28% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerEdge MX- Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 14% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 3% of the time

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HPE Superdome X vs Lenovo Flex System

Compared 52% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

September 2025

Download HPE Synergy product report

Buyer's Guide

Blade Servers

August 2025

Download Lenovo Flex System product report

Also Known As

No data available

Flex System Blade Servers, Flex System SN Series

Overview

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

Flex System is Lenovo’s proven, 2nd generation blade, that efficiently runs your infrastructure applications with up to 80% better density than standard rack server deployments.

Lenovo

Sample Customers

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

September 2025

Free Report: HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

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