Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE NonStop comparison

Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11. Cisco holds a 8.3% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS B-Series

Read 73 Cisco UCS B-Series reviews

1,158 Views
1,135 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

HPE NonStop

Read 12 HPE NonStop reviews

811 Views
811 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS B-Series

HPE NonStop

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

Cisco UCS B-Series and HPE NonStop compete in the enterprise server market. Cisco UCS B-Series appears to have the upper hand in scalability and integration, while HPE NonStop leads in reliability needed for mission-critical environments.

Features: Cisco UCS B-Series provides high-density blade architecture, unified infrastructure and advanced management options, such as centralized management using UCS Manager. It also facilitates seamless virtualization integration and service profile management. HPE NonStop offers unparalleled fault tolerance, continuous availability, and exceptional reliability vital for industries like banking and telecommunications. Its linear expandability allows for increased processing capacity by linking additional systems.

Room for Improvement: Cisco UCS B-Series could benefit from simplifying its complex UCS Manager and enhancing the user experience. It also needs to optimize its setup configuration process. HPE NonStop could improve by lowering its high upfront costs and minimizing complexities in deployment architecture. Additionally, enhancements in usability and user interface will aid in better client experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco UCS B-Series offers a streamlined setup with strong vendor support, making it easy to deploy and integrate. HPE NonStop is more complex to deploy due to its specialized architecture but is backed by in-depth customer service, providing excellent support for managing critical applications.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco UCS B-Series provides competitive pricing, focusing on cost reduction through automation and achieving a strong ROI. HPE NonStop, while more costly upfront, delivers long-term value through its substantial reliability, justifying its expense in mission-critical sectors with its 99.9% uptime and fault tolerance.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE NonStop Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE NonStop

June 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

Cisco UCS B-Series

Ranking in Blade Servers

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HPE NonStop

Ranking in Blade Servers

11th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.3%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE NonStop is 4.2%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

DavidMbugua

Group General Manager-ICT at SkyLink

Reliable product with efficient automation capabilities

Cisco UCS B-Series manages various processes, including handling payments for over 650,000 growers, running group financials, managing human resources, and operating our main ERP system, SAP. The servers' resilience was particularly impactful. Even during power outages, the servers resumed operations from the last saved point without human intervention. The enhanced processing speed also allowed us to complete tasks that took two days in just one hour. The automation capabilities enhanced efficiency and facilitated integration with our networking components, particularly since we also used Cisco switches. The servers' security was reliable, and formal training on Cisco products made management easier. I rate the product an eight.

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Roni Wijaya

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.

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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

"The most beneficial feature is UCS Manager. It's the best way to manage hardware, creating group policies, like scrub policies and maintenance policies."

"The architecture of this solution is very valuable; it has five traffic interconnects, and uses a network highway so bandwidth is never an issue."

"They've been responsive and helpful whenever we've needed assistance."

"If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions"

"The ratio in terms of the number of units and the number of servers that we can get each chassis is quite good."

"The servers' resilience was particularly impactful."

"The most valuable feature is the service profile."

"In terms of the flexibility of the tool to adapt to technology needs, I think it is a very good solution."

More Cisco UCS B-Series pros

"We don't have any issues with the stability of HPE NonStop."

"Feature-wise, the most valuable one is the fact that it has 100 hundred percent uptime every year. Secondly, it is stable."

"The stability of HPE NonStop is good."

Cons

"Cisco could improve the user-friendliness for less experienced users."

"The management interface needs a lot of improvement. As it is right now, it's a pain to use. It's not user-friendly."

"The integration is an area where Cisco UCS B-Series needs to provide users with more details."

"The solution’s technical support could be better."

"Right now, the market is rapidly transitioning to solid-state media and the Cisco options tend to be less varied and more expensive than a broader slate of products from HP, Dell or IBM."

"It should be more user-friendly."

"The UCS manager interface needs to be cleaned up a bit and can be streamlined, but no major complaints."

"Cisco is not going for perpetual licensing."

More Cisco UCS B-Series cons

"It is not flexible...Not a lot of applications run on HPE NonStop."

"HPE NonStop could improve by having infrastructure management."

"It would be helpful if they brought the price down."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product cost is high."

"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."

"The licensing cost is a little bit expensive because by default, it depends on your fabric interconnect model. Most of the time, however, Cisco provides a lot of promotions to the customers, so the cost can be waived for many projects. The price of the chassis itself is fair."

"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution."

"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."

"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"

"The type of service level purchase will determine the level of support response that you receive from Cisco."

"Cisco UCS does not require a license. However, this license is not specific to users."

More Cisco UCS B-Series pricing and cost advice

"HPE NonStop is definitely on the higher end."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing an eight."

"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

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

22%

Retailer

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS B-Series?

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?

The licensing cost for three years, followed by an AMC for two years, is reasonable. However, the management software, Cisco One, is priced a bit high but still considered reasonable. No additional...

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What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?

Last year, we faced challenges with firmware upgrades, but they were quickly resolved with assistance from Cisco TAC.

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Comparisons

HPE Synergy vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 35% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 18% of the time

Supermicro SuperBlade vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 17% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 15% of the time

More Cisco UCS B-Series Competitors

HPE Superdome X vs HPE NonStop

Compared 38% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE NonStop

Compared 29% of the time

Fujitsu CX1000 vs HPE NonStop

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Synergy vs HPE NonStop

Compared 14% of the time

More HPE NonStop Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series

July 2025

Download Cisco UCS B-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE NonStop

June 2025

Download HPE NonStop product report

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series

HP NonStop, HPE Integrity NonStop

Overview

Based on Intel Xeon processor E7 and E5 product families, Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers work with virtualized and non-virtualized applications to increase: Performance, Energy efficiency, Flexibility and Administrator productivity.

Cisco

When availability matters, the new HPE Integrity NonStop X enables you to stay ahead of your competition by mitigating the risk of downtime and effortlessly meeting your business processing, OLTP, and database requirements all with an industry-standard x86 architecture. HPE brings you an unparalleled portfolio of HPE Integrity NonStop systems the NonStop i family and the NonStop X family. These systems deliver the highest level of availability for the most-demanding, high-value workloads and customer-facing applications.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE NonStop

June 2025

Free Report: Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE NonStop

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