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Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 23, 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 C-Series Rack Ser...
Ranking in Rack Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (3rd)
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
Ranking in Rack Servers
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
207
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd), Data Center Networking (3rd), Blade Servers (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is 4.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 27.6%, down from 28.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Kalpesh Savaliya - PeerSpot reviewer
Good support, and this product well-suited to our size of environment
We use these rack servers for terminal operating systems The initial setup could be easier. I have been working with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers for five years. This is a stable product. For our use case, this product is scalable up to 16 blades, including two sites. I don't know how well…
Syed Masuood - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles workloads and diverse applications efficiently
We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload. For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time. We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In most cases, computes compute, and there isn't much differentiation, but one point of differentiation is Intersight cloud management."
"The server can be configured easily."
"The C-series is the most valuable."
"The product doesn't take up too much space on the rack and I like that."
"Its hardware is really reliable. We also like Cisco for its support."
"The VIC card is the most important feature."
"Excellent server solution with incredible network throughput."
"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are agileness, ease of operation, and manageability."
"It is quite stable. We didn't have a single downtime of failure. Nor have we ever experienced any downtime in electrical components or the hardware. In this way, the server is reliable."
"For us, the most valuable feature is the iDRAC. It helps us to solve problems when a server is stuck or hung or we don't have any network access."
"This is a stable solution."
"The iDRAC is an excellent service; it allows us to install and deploy our software remotely."
"Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten."
"I have not had any issues with stability. Considering some of the environments aren't great, I think they are remarkably stable."
"Our overall experience with their product and support has been consistently excellent."
"They are incredibly valuable because they are both user-friendly and powerful for managing hardware."
 

Cons

"The product's stability and delivery time could be better."
"The solution needs more capacity and more scalability."
"On the contact center and video conferencing, I would definitely like to see more AI features. The AI features are key for us. You will find a lot of them in the cloud-based solution, but in the on-premises solution, they're hardly there. I would like to see the same AI features that are there in the cloud-based Cisco UC."
"The solution can be improved by adjusting the cost."
"I would like to see a little more integration with VMware."
"The C-Series is not designed to be as scalable. They are designed to have enough RAM and enough CPU on their own side. If you want scalability, it's better to choose the B-Series— the Blade Servers — because those are much more scalable with Fabric Interconnect."
"The pricing is too high and no discounts are available for our country."
"The only thing I would change is to provide more proactive support."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could be improved in areas such as cooling."
"The pricing can be better. These are expensive machines."
"It's more from the pandemic, however, the logistics part of it could be better."
"The rate controller interface is difficult to get to without installing additional software. It would be helpful if they had preinstalled software to make that easily accessible."
"The pricing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been a little problematic. It was sticker shock with our most recent purchase compared to the previous one, and there's a gap in pricing at our current level because what we do isn't very compute-intensive, resulting in a mismatch where we fit into an in-between category without an exact solution available."
"From a Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers perspective, I would prefer to see them just keep up with the latest processors, with more power."
"The licensing of the different formats of the iDRAC is somewhat annoying."
"Considering from a hardware perspective, some areas of concern were network cards on the models we had in our organization, which were fairly inaccessible, so we had to remove the whole motherboard and, basically, the whole system to get rid of or swap a network card."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."
"The price of the Cisco UCS C-Series Rack could improve. It's a little more expensive in comparison with Dell or HPE solutions."
"The price for Cisco is a bit higher than its competitors. We paid 40k for one server."
"We have to pay for the VMware and Cisco licenses."
"The solution requires an annual licensing fee."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis, which is only $2,000 or $3,000."
"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is high."
"The price of the solution could be better when compared to other solutions. However, when we purchased the solution we received Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers in a bundle with other hardware, such as IP phones and networking switches."
"Dell's solution was cheaper than HP's solution."
"Dell is priced better than alternative solutions."
"It's not a very expensive solution."
"The pricing could always be better."
"We have not compared them with others. The price is okay, but they can always be a little bit cheaper."
"At present, the pricing seems a bit high for us."
"It's abundantly clear that the specific licensing requirements will be dictated by the intricacies of the machinery we deploy."
"The main reason I choose Dell there is cost. Dell is cheaper than HPE. Why would I want to pay a premium for an HPE product when I'm getting the same amount of support, the same amount of data protection, and the same amount of performance from Dell?"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could be improved in areas such as cooling. I've seen some demos of Dell working with Vertiv to manage things such as that, so a combination of air cool and liquid cool....
 

Also Known As

Unified Computing System C-Series, Cisco UCS C-Series
PowerEdge R
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Artoni Transporti, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, City of Mississauga, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Kind en Gezin, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Nationwide, Quest, Talbots, University of St. Gallen
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.