Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

The compared Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #5 in Rack Servers , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 5.0% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #2 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 19.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

Read 31 Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers reviews

2,578 Views
2,501 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 91 HPE Synergy reviews

3,228 Views
2,260 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

HPE Synergy

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers and HPE Synergy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and others in Rack Servers.

To learn more, read our detailed Rack Servers Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rack Servers

August 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 865,829 peers since 2012

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...

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

4.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Rack Servers (5th), Density Optimized Servers (3rd)

HPE Synergy

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Blade Servers (2nd), Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is designed for Rack Servers and holds a mindshare of 5.0%, up 4.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 19.8% mindshare, down 21.3% since last year.

Rack Servers

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Berthold Manz

CTO at ExperTeach GmbH

Seamless server transitions enhance IT infrastructure for AI projects and improve management capabilities

If you are integrated into the Cisco management solution, it is very easy to handle. The performance aspects of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are very strong. The ability to move from one server to another without changing anything is excellent. We can transfer all the identity of the servers between the servers.

Read full review

CarlosArdila

Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago

Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis

The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support from Cisco is fine."

"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are agileness, ease of operation, and manageability."

"What I really like about the Cisco USC Server is its service profile."

"The processors are so strong that they can deliver AI solutions without any additional GPU card, but we are also using some GPUs, which surely gives even better results."

"Cisco rack servers are very easy to integrate with other products from different vendors."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."

"In terms of the features that I have found most valuable, that is basically the hardware, which is more dynamic."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack is the use of databases, such as MySQL."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pros

"We have more control over the firmware and how we are managing our physical servers."

"It is really easy to use, because it's GUI-based. It is not command line based, like mainframes."

"The processing time has been about 50 times faster and allows us to do AI models."

"It is helping us sort of bridge a gap that we are having moving off of old legacy systems, like HP-UX systems and trying to move over to x86. So, it is helping fill a hardware gap that a lot of our platforms have needed in the past."

"It is first in class for composable infrastructure. It has the scalability that meets our future needs and the automation that builds into something that we are really looking forward to using."

"The scalability is great."

"The manageability is its most valuable feature. It is a fully managed platform, which is very simple to manage."

"The Synergy environment provides us with one view. We're able to manage the entire stack, top to bottom, from that single view."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"The price of the solution is problematic, not the solution itself. It could be less expensive."

"The solution can be improved by adjusting the cost."

"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 improvement should be done as per customer requirements."

"Technical support could be more responsive."

"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could improve by adding a wider portfolio because they only have two main categories, the C-220 and 240. There is no wide range of options as other solutions have, such as Dell. Additionally, if it was more flexible with the configuration it would be good."

"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."

"I would like to see a little more integration with VMware."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers cons

"I'd like to see the firmware updates, as well as the built-in OneView and imager in Composer, become a little more powerful and faster."

"Product documentation is disorganized."

"It would be nice if the updates were not accompanied by downtime."

"The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS. That would be helpful."

"I would like more storage with this solution, because we still need 3PAR or other storage outside the box for the amount of data that we have."

"Over the two years of using HPE Synergy, we have found some hardware failures that are frequent in the SOP models, CNA cards, and converged network adapters. These failures are frequently happening for a lot of the customers."

"Synergy could probably do some code enhancements to simplify the deployment a bit more."

"It has affected the productivity of our development team in a bad way. When we first stood the hardware up 18 months ago, the image streaming capacity and capability were not very good at all. We had hoped that it would allow us to be more composable and be able to switch over from one version of an operating system to another version of an operating system. However, it wasn't ready for prime time yet. Therefore, we had to go back to a deployment of bare metal install. We are still waiting and trying to figure out how we can do the composable infrastructure."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis, which is only $2,000 or $3,000."

"My company has an agreement with Cisco to get discounted rates. It is one of the reasons why we chose the product."

"The pricing is expensive."

"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is high."

"This product is quite expensive and it would be better if it were cheaper."

"The price for Cisco is a bit higher than its competitors. We paid 40k for one server."

"The price of the Cisco UCS C-Series Rack could improve. It's a little more expensive in comparison with Dell or HPE solutions."

"This solution is a little expensive."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pricing and cost advice

"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."

"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."

"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."

"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."

"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."

"We do CAPEX."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Rack Servers solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The C-series is the most valuable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

The solution is moderately priced.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?

I may not be the right person to comment on advanced improvements because we are just using basic functionalities. We are getting all the functionalities which we used to get in other OEM rack serv...

See all answers

How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?

For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?

As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?

In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 54% of the time

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 23% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Apollo Systems vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

HPE Moonshot vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 34% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 30% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Superdome X vs HPE Synergy

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

August 2025

Download Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

August 2025

Download HPE Synergy product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

UCS C-Series Rack Servers deliver unified computing in an industry-standard form factor to reduce TCO and increase agility. Each server addresses varying workload challenges through a balance of processing, memory, I/O, and internal storage resources.

Cisco

HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and others in Rack Servers. Updated: August 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Rack Servers reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.