No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
32
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (7th), Density Optimized Servers (3rd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (5th), 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 5.2%, up 5.1% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 8.6% mindshare, down 19.5% since last year.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers5.2%
Dell PowerEdge R-Series21.0%
HPE ProLiant DL Servers16.7%
Other57.1%
Rack Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy8.6%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series8.4%
HPE BladeSystem8.0%
Other75.0%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Berthold Manz - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MS
Works at Saudi Telecom Company
Manage servers efficiently with an integrated view while reducing downtime
My use case is to serve the complete IT environment of the telecom, including all cloud applications. I use HPE Synergy servers for my private cloud and for network management systems. 70% of my workload is running on HPE servers The integrated view, such as managing complete servers and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The C-series is the most valuable."
"The server can be configured easily."
"It is very stable and easy to use."
"The support from Cisco UCS C-Series Rack has been very good."
"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are agileness, ease of operation, and manageability."
"The product doesn't take up too much space on the rack and I like that."
"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are integration and customization."
"The technical support from Cisco is fine."
"We build out a whole stack at one time, so we don't have to worry about it until that stack is full, then that gives us time to get the next one ready."
"Synergy is a flexible product, so it helps us to manage our IT landscape in a more simplified, structured way."
"The insert RAM feature is the most valuable, and it is a simple software to integrate with others like service desk applications and engine management."
"HPE is really the leading platform."
"OneView, as a single point, a single management tool, it makes me delirious. It's really nice."
"Being able to connect my 3PAR arrays to the Synergy platform is the most valuable aspect to me."
"The solution has reduced our cost of operations and has also reduced our IT infrastructure costs."
"HPE has proven track records worldwide delivering superb support on hard- and software."
 

Cons

"This product is quite expensive and it would be better if it were cheaper."
"Its accessibility and manageability can be improved. Currently, we have to visit the office to manage it. It should be manageable outside our network. I would like it to be on the cloud."
"The hard drive of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not very good. I have already replaced three of them."
"The solution needs more capacity and more scalability."
"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack could improve by selling storage. Cisco doesn't sell storage, which is a problem because some customers ask for storage. There are several brands in the market, such as HPE, and Dell EMC. However, Cisco doesn't have any storage. This is where the tension comes from buying this solution."
"I would like to see a little more integration with VMware."
"There is very little scalability for the cluster. If you need a higher availability, there is a user limitation. So that is the low side."
"The product must add customer-friendly monitoring features."
"The solution should support Cisco or other vendor interconnect models."
"I've found the user experience to not be that great."
"I would like the ability to have my storage components accessed from any other frame across the backplane. If we have a storage module and we run out of space in that frame, it'd be nice to be able to share it across the frames. You can do it with hyperconverged. Why can't you do it with Synergy?"
"The technical support was about the only negative experience that I had. It was a mixed bag when we were first standing it up."
"A faster Composer module would be a good inclusion for the next release of this solution."
"One of the things that I would like to see, and could be in their road map, is getting virtual connect to 100 Gig throughput."
"In the Generation 10 modules, we have observed that very often the server has hardware issues."
"That means you're managing and you're monitoring your networking, your compute, your storage from it, but not everything works."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company has an agreement with Cisco to get discounted rates. It is one of the reasons why we chose the product."
"The server itself isn't costly at all, but the CPU and the RAM can be pretty expensive. You can buy a UCS for $2,000, but the RAM and CPU can cost up to $80,000. The most expensive asset is the intel processor, but it depends on how many cores you want and the technology you want to use on your CPU, like Hyper-V, etc."
"The solution is expensive and I give the price a four out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis, which is only $2,000 or $3,000."
"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."
"The solution requires an annual licensing fee."
"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 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."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"Our IT infrastructure costs have gone up each year by 20 percent."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
"Nutanix was really hard to implement, and it was very pricey compared to what we get from Synergy."
"The cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Rack Servers solutions are best for your needs.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not troublesome, but it is confusing. It takes a lot of time to navigate licensing and to work through ...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
I think Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could be improved, but I'm not really a forward thinker; everything works pretty well with how we're using it. It's not really an improvement, but the soluti...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
My main use case for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is hypervisors, using them as a hypervisor.
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Unified Computing System C-Series, Cisco UCS C-Series
No data available
 

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
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and others in Rack Servers. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.