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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
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
74
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 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 6.9%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Superdome X is 6.8%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS B-Series6.9%
HPE Superdome X6.8%
Other86.3%
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.
reviewer2056329 - PeerSpot reviewer
Professor at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Robust product, helped with workload management and offers remote configuration
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. One other problem is energy consumption. We are forced to use both chassis even when we only need, for example, all four processors. It's not always used at full capacity every day. When underutilized, we still need to have both chassis powered, which creates an energy consumption issue. While the machine can be configured to reduce consumption, the idea of having different possible configurations with varying chassis usage, similar to the Flex version, could be interesting for this model, too. This model leverages specific features of the Intel MAP board, so switching like in the Flex might be difficult due to the motherboard switching involved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We work with this solution because we find that the technology is superior to others."
"The Cisco solution provides a unified dashboard which enhances virtualization tasks, allowing configurations from a single interface. It also helps with space and power management, which are vital for data center efficiency."
"The ratio in terms of the number of units and the number of servers that we can get each chassis is quite good."
"The GUI makes is simple to use and deploy."
"It's modular."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to replace a server with another one, simply by applying the profile."
"Dell has a huge portfolio of products."
"I like that the hardware is separated from the software definition of the components."
"If you're looking for a solution where you need a lot of workload and power, it's a great solution."
"We felt that the HPE's solution offered the best performance of the group."
"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."
"It's an amazing product, an amazing technology, that has the best of that world: performance and uptime, and standardization."
"We've got a few of them, because we needed some really large machines; so far, they've been working pretty good."
"This product is very reliable."
"HPE Superdome X is a very resilient infrastructure, and stable."
"One of the really cool things about Superdome is, depending on the model you choose, you can put 8-16 blades in it, but because of the structure and the engineering behind it, you can actually have your blades partitioned and they're actually physically divided."
 

Cons

"The upgrades could be improved."
"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."
"Next generation support for VMware needs to be introduced as it does not support eighth-generation VMware."
"Cisco products are technically quite bulky if you ask me. You really need to be very proficient technically to deploy it and to understand the assignment of the service profiles before you can really make the most of it."
"We have to have Java to manage the infrastructure. It would be great if we can manage the infrastructure through a web browser."
"The graphic code that UCS can support is limited and less accessible than other systems."
"The license is expensive. Cisco should decrease the delay in the delivery of their products."
"We have to have Java to manage the infrastructure. It would be great if we can manage the infrastructure through a web browser."
"It would be helpful if you could do the maintenance completely online."
"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."
"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."
"There's a big upfront investment, but the total cost of ownership should be cheaper over the long term."
"The price of this product should be cheaper."
"I know we support Windows and I think it's Red Hat, and I'd like to see more OSs supported."
"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."
"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.""
 

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."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution on a yearly basis. Price-wise, it is an expensive product"
"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"Pricing with Cisco is very high."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"Cisco products are at the high end in terms of cost, but everything is included with the licensing fees."
"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."
"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."
"There is a very expensive one-time cost with no licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
University
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
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 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 2026.
892,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.