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Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE NonStop comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 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

Cisco UCS B-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE NonStop
Ranking in Blade Servers
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 7.3%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE NonStop is 4.9%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS B-Series7.3%
HPE NonStop4.9%
Other87.8%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

MB
Head of IT Operations at NCC BANK LIMITED
Efficient server management reduces costs and supports seamless operations
Cisco UCS B-Series has reliably sustained smooth operations without the need for significant maintenance. Its administration capabilities provide easy access to performance reports, logs, and utilization data, which are essential for effective server management. Additionally, the integration capabilities are seamless, and the power consumption and heat generation are low, resulting in reduced cooling costs and increased financial benefits.
Roni Wijaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President of It Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
With a perfect record for uptime, the solution ensures a return on investment
Since it is a legacy tool, there is a need to change it for flexibility. I think now it has improved because the security is very good. It is very secure for the performance of the machine critical application service, and it is very good. I don't know how to speak more on improvement needed because it's a good enough tool. However, depending on the application, it's limited. Not a lot of applications run on HPE NonStop. It is not flexible because I know that because of the compatibility of Java with HPE NonStop. When we are using Java, the performance is not good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's tech support has good people."
"Remote access to the server is very useful."
"Faster deployments of new and replacement hardware compact footprint saves valuable space on the rack."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is flexible as it can be built as a standalone system and expanded horizontally and vertically in a cluster mode, with a standout feature being the Unified Fabric which combines LAN and SAN, reducing the need for numerous cables and offering consistent configuration, unlike traditional setups."
"The scalability is very good."
"The Dual Fabric design allows for online/in-service upgrades during production with no impact."
"The stability of Cisco UCS B-Series is impeccable, as it has been running smoothly without any need for maintenance."
"The scalability, high availability, and security all combined is a good offering."
"Feature-wise, the most valuable one is the fact that it has 100 hundred percent uptime every year. Secondly, it is stable."
"It helps us to keep the business running 24/7."
"It is a nearly perfect product, although it also has some restrictions and short comings."
"If you are contemplating a fault-tolerant, high uptime transaction processing machine with above normal transactions volumes - to act as a transaction server with infrequent changes to code - and you simply must have bulletproof performance - this might be the ticket."
"The HPE NonStop solution is rated with the highest level of availability in the industry."
"Implement it. You will never regret it."
"This is the standard for reliability and fault-resilience."
"Because we're able to get immediate support, this prevents downtime and directly impacts cost savings."
 

Cons

"Software defects that result in false environmental alarms have been a pain point for us."
"The management interface needs a lot of improvement. As it is right now, it's a pain to use. It's not user-friendly."
"Dell should address the issue of direct support and spare parts availability in our region."
"The product could be made more secure."
"From my point of view the initial cost to do this for a small regional office where we usually have the computer in a dedicated network closet for the switches and servers."
"Cisco could improve the user-friendliness for less experienced users."
"The price of the solution could improve."
"It could be helpful to have a wizard to make the setup routine better, and a wizard to help with the managerial processes to avoid misconfiguration issues."
"It would be helpful if they brought the price down."
"NonStop (formerly known as Tandem) in the Guardian OS could use another, friendlier macro language."
"The NonStop system is well priced, but the software that runs on it is quite pricey."
"It is not flexible...Not a lot of applications run on HPE NonStop."
"I would never advise someone to buy or to implement the new NonStop because it's hard to find skilled people."
"There were some scalability issues. When we decided to migrate an application or port application, the limitations of these servers did not help us."
"Currently the NonStop platform doesn’t support virtualization of servers or CPU’s. Only storage."
"The NonStop Support Center is very good, with an occasional bump in the road."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is a little bit higher, but given that this system is Cisco, it feels more secure and dependable."
"It is not a yearly subscription but a yearly support renewal that you need to do for Cisco UCS B-Series."
"Cisco UCS does not require a license. However, this license is not specific to users."
"A physical licensing fees needs to be paid."
"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution on a yearly basis. Price-wise, it is an expensive product"
"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"Make sure you work with a vendor partner than can get you a substantial discount off of list pricing."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing an eight."
"HPE NonStop is definitely on the higher end."
"The price of the solution is too high. If they lowered the price substantially it would open up more opportunities. It's considered a replacement for the old 9000 boxes of HP. If it had a lower price, we would be able to compete in the financial, and other sectors and other solutions such as Terraform. Having a high price makes other solutions more attractive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?
Comparing Cisco UCS B-Series with traditional servers, while its initial cost may be slightly higher, it is not as expensive as Oracle Exadata, making it a worthwhile investment. It pays off in the...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
There is a need for Cisco UCS B-Series to evolve and scale vertically, particularly with the increasing data demands and the integration of AI, ensuring the solution remains certified and capable u...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS B-Series?
The Cisco UCS B-Series servers are used to run backend databases ranging from small, medium, to large, running different versions of RDBMS such as Oracle, SQL, MySQL. It also includes cloud databas...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
HP NonStop, HPE Integrity NonStop
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Anonymous Banking Group, Artoni Transporti, Bellevue, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Hertz, Houston Methodist, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co.KG, Outscale, Sony Corporation, Talbots
Bankart, Capital Securities Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE NonStop and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.