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 8.6, and holds a 5.1% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 19.5% 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

2,486 Views
2,387 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 91 HPE Synergy reviews

3,239 Views
2,235 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...

HPE Synergy

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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

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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 (2nd)

HPE Synergy

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Blade Servers (1st), 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 5.1%, up 4.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 19.5% mindshare, down 21.0% since last year.

Rack Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers	5.1%
Dell PowerEdge R-Series	27.6%
HPE ProLiant DL Servers	21.9%
Other	45.4%

Rack Servers

Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Synergy	19.5%
HPE BladeSystem	14.0%
HPE Superdome X	9.8%
Other	56.7%

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

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

"The solution is scalable."

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

"The solution is easily scalable."

"The server can be configured easily."

"The product doesn't take up too much space on the rack and I like that."

"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."

"In most cases, computes compute, and there isn't much differentiation, but one point of differentiation is Intersight cloud management."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers pros

"On the previous HPE platform, we struggled because everything was independent. We had to manage firmware on each server, storage and network configuration on each server. Synergy is template-driven so we can ensure consistency of all of those settings. It allows us to standardize configuration and ensure consistency across the board."

"It's more composable, you can use storage as well as compute blades. So maybe it's more versatile compared to the traditional blade systems."

"Everything is combined in one chassis, you have storage, compute, networking. So you save a lot of space in the datacenter."

"The stability is very good. We haven't had any outages."

"Everything is in one place. We have one place to with OneView. It provides one console with one place to get to everything. The one interface makes it easier. We have one guy who does almost everything in it."

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

"Great data storage and very good for software defined solutions."

"I believe, compared to the C7000, it delivers a significant amount of innovation and flexibility,"

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where Cisco needs to focus on making some improvements."

"The improvement should be done as per customer requirements."

"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."

"Technical support could be more responsive."

"I think the pricing is high. Cisco has to look for bundling this solutions with other applications."

"The pricing is too high and no discounts are available for our country."

"Some customers have complained about delivery time. So, the main weakness is the lead time."

"Definitely the support area needs improving. Especially the time response in case of hardware failure."

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers cons

"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?"

"This solution could be improved by increasing the speed on the conversion adapters. It should be 100 gigs."

"After delivering the contract, they became a little less active. So, it needs some pushing from my side sometimes."

"The stability is not good right now. We have had a couple of outages where we have receive very good support from HPE. However, we have not been able to come up with cut and dried reasons for why the outages have occurred. They have not been able to be reproduced, so it has been difficult getting our trust back."

"Technical support was time consuming and unsatisfactory. The initial product setup was complex, lasing around three weeks to a month."

"The setup was a bit complex."

"We haven't seen any ROI, and it hasn't reduced our cost of operations."

"Continue the path of integrating OneView into a single product. A lot of different people have different OneView experiences based on which product they have used it for."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"This solution is a little expensive."

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

"The solution is expensive and I give the price a four out of ten."

"The solution is moderately priced."

"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."

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

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

"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."

"We are satisfied with its price."

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

"The hardware licensing cost is reasonable."

"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."

"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."

"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."

"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."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	13

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	56

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 52% of the time

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

Compared 22% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 3% of the time

HPE Moonshot vs Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 27% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerEdge MX- Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 7% 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

September 2025

Download Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

September 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

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