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Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Superdome X 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
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Superdome X
Ranking in Blade Servers
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.8%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Superdome X is 10.8%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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Featured Reviews

Filip Kopecký - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly stable and secure solution that has a straightforward setup
We are running many applications for a logistics provider. We do the storing of goods for our partners and transport and so on The most valuable features of the solution are stability and security. The solution’s pricing could be improved and made cheaper. I have been using Cisco UCS B-Series…
OmobolajiOlaloku - PeerSpot reviewer
High resilience, performs well, and high availability
HPE Superdome X is used in my data center for our core banking application The most valuable features of HPE Superdome X are speed, performance, and resilience. HPE Superdome X can improve by adding a lot of cloud capabilities to allow this solution to be cloud-ready in case the customer wants…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall service and support from Cisco is very good."
"The stability of Cisco UCS B-Series is impeccable, as it has been running smoothly without any need for maintenance."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the service profile."
"The GUI makes is simple to use and deploy."
"They've been responsive and helpful whenever we've needed assistance."
"Dell has a huge portfolio of products."
"The scalability and easy management of the lifecycle, upgrades, and hardware failures are valuable."
"Superdome X is a system that can compete in terms of performance and uptime, but it's now standard. That is the great value. There are competitors like IBM, for example, but IBM has a propietary operating system. With Superdome X, you have a system that can run Windows, Red Hat, or VMware, but in a mission critical server."
"The most valuable features of HPE Superdome X are speed, performance, and resilience."
"We've got a few of them, because we needed some really large machines. So far, they've been working pretty good."
"I like the robustness of the machine. Similar performance could likely be achieved with other configurations, but this machine is very stable."
"SDX gave us a very large RAM and we need that for the large-scale graph-handling applications."
"This product is very reliable."
"One of the really cool things about Superdome is, depending on the model you choose, you can put 8-16 blades in it."
 

Cons

"The graphic code that UCS can support is limited and less accessible than other systems."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"Dell should address the issue of direct support and spare parts availability in our region."
"For future improvements, it would be a benefit if the solution could integrate better with products such as Oracle."
"The management interface needs a lot of improvement. As it is right now, it's a pain to use. It's not user-friendly."
"Despite the benefits gained from the product implementation, the cost could be more appealing if the overall cost of ownership were reduced."
"The solution is difficult to set up."
"Cisco is expensive and difficult to manage. The product is not intuitive. It also needs to improve storage management and upgrades."
"I'd like to see the onboarding of some storage class memory to really expand the already very large RAM, into something that could be even much bigger."
"HPE Superdome X can improve by adding a lot of cloud capabilities to allow this solution to be cloud-ready in case the customer wants to move it to the cloud."
"What would make it better from my point of view is if HPE spent more time on testing with the actual built-in Red Hat Linux drivers, as opposed to always trying to say, "Use our driver.""
"In this specific model, it could be beneficial to have a server configuration similar to Cisco, like the kind offered in HPE Superdome Flex X280. The ability to separate the chassis is important because we are forced to use two chassis even with lower loads. So introducing more flexibility in the Superdome environment would be helpful."
"I know we support Windows and I think it's Red Hat, and I'd like to see more OSs supported."
"It would be helpful if you could do the maintenance completely online."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing with Cisco is very high."
"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"
"It is highly-priced."
"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."
"Compared to the more in-demand hyper-converged environments such as Nutanix or DVX rail, Cisco UCS B-Series is even more costly due to the expensive fabric interconnects."
"UCS is expensive, and we will be migrating to the cheaper HP servers."
"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."
"The product cost is high."
"There is a very expensive one-time cost with no licensing fees."
"The pricing is not very cheap. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very inexpensive, and ten being very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

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.
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...
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.
What do you like most about HPE Superdome X?
I like the robustness of the machine. Similar performance could likely be achieved with other configurations, but this machine is very stable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Superdome X?
The pricing is not very cheap. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very inexpensive, and ten being very expensive.
What needs improvement with HPE Superdome X?
In this specific model, it could be beneficial to have a server configuration similar to Cisco, like the kind offered in HPE Superdome Flex X280. The ability to separate the chassis is important be...
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
HP Integrity Superdome, HP Superdome X
 

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
Pella
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE Superdome X and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.