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Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 E-Series Servers
Ranking in Blade Servers
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
309
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (4th), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 3.7%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 5.1%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series5.1%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.7%
Other91.2%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Solution Architect at COPYCAT LIMITED
Automation and integration capabilities streamline IT infrastructure management
The most valuable feature of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is the Cisco interface. The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team. Pricing is acceptable, and these servers have had a significant impact on cost savings and operational efficiency. The integration with Cisco routers simplifies the IT infrastructure.
Tom van Mil - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Lico Innovations B.v.
Supports flexible hosting needs through seamless upgradability and strong monitoring capabilities
The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for me are the feature richness and the upgradability. I really love the way that it is so dynamically applicable for every situation, and they manage to have an all-in-one solution for every single situation. Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio. Every time Dell is at the top of its game for us, and there is just no other brand for us that is able to reach that kind of price-to-performance ratio. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of my small company, such as iDRAC. The iDRAC system is a complete feature set for managing servers and hardware technically and monitoring-wise. It really fits in our system and our ecosystem, and monitoring-wise, it is excellent. They have all these sensors available via different protocols and end points, which I love, and the ability to manage and control everything via the iDRAC interface is just a welcome bonus. In our use case, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very flexible. It is another computer which helps a lot because of the durability over time. They keep running, making scalability for getting more of those resources in our environment so easy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"The product is overall stable."
"The Cisco chassis is very easy to configure and any network engineer or expert can configure the solution and easily integrate it with the chassis."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team."
"The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability."
"Overall, the Cisco chassis is pretty good, pretty stable and easier to configure as compared to HP and others."
"What I can advise other prospective customers is that they should not worry about Cisco's support, stability, and performance."
"The best features of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are the service, the availability of the equipment, and the relational price quality."
"Dell PowerEdge R-Series has absolutely enhanced the overall flexibility of our operations and business without a doubt."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is the reliability. I have tried other manufacturers and servers both personally and in my job, and it's clear that the Dell PowerEdge offers the best price, performance, and reliability; there's really no contest."
"Dell PowerEdge servers are powerful. They don't break, and I love that. In my career of over 30 years now, all the Dell servers we've ever used out of the box have never broken."
"I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten."
"We do not have much workload right now. We are happy with whatever we have tested."
"Managing it is straightforward, and the scalability aligns well with the needs of our organization."
"All the customers that I have implemented PowerEdge for are very happy and like the performance."
 

Cons

"I am always asked to justify why we should purchase such expensive hardware when there are other brand names available with same capacity for a lesser price."
"The product should also be available in a standard edition or a standard license since currently there is a need to pay for an extra license, which is very expensive, especially when considering the budgeting part of our company."
"I would like to see improvements in VMware integration with Cisco, especially in terms of documentation and integration tools. Support of NVIDIA integration would also make it better."
"One thing that could be improved is the cost - it is very high for this Blade chassis as compared to other vendors. Especially in Asia. Asian customers mostly prefer a cost effective, cheaper solution."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"I chose a rating of nine instead of ten because there is always room for improvements in technology."
"For our particular use case, we need very large hard drives, and the world keeps moving away from big hard drives to small SSDs."
"We wanted to have two storage cards during the onboarding process of the solution, which were available only on the more expensive version of the boxes that we usually use for work in our company."
"Currently, we are facing issues with updates, particularly on the driver side. We did not receive proper communication about upcoming driver upgrades and other aspects. We are lagging in that area. We need to know about any upcoming updates so that we can plan accordingly. It could be that our emails are not registered properly."
"We are working with national markets, and HP Enterprise is cheaper. Dell could have made an effort there."
"The easiest thing to improve the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is to have a better road map for us."
"The product must provide more options to add GPUs to the machines."
"Dell is expensive, which is a known fact. When comparing similar products, Dell often has higher prices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive, they are quite pricey."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
"The product is expensive."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution. The most expensive server from Cisco is Cisco UCS B-Series."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's prices are good, especially considering what you get to use...The licensing aspect of the solution is also fine."
"The product is cheaper than HP servers, but the price could always be better."
"I personally think the pricing and licensing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is actually fairly decent, though the way the business runs leads to sticker shock anytime we give them a quote."
"The high cost of Dell PowerEdge Rack Server licenses is attributed to the pre-installed Windows Server operating system from Microsoft."
"When you compare public cloud solutions to PowerEdge in terms of cost, initially the cost of Dell servers or Dell technology was really high. However, right now it's on par or, maybe, even cheaper when we use Dell hardware. If we don't swap it out in three years and if we stretch it to four or five years, then we can get even more of an ROI versus cloud cost."
"I wouldn't say the solution's pricing is the best, but it's very competitive."
"It has generally been very competitive. It is not the best, but it is very competitive."
"The price of this solution is reasonable. It's very comparable to similar solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Wholesaler/Distributor
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business112
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise129
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
The pricing of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is okay, costing around 30,000 per year. Support is included in this cost.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
I would like to see improvements in VMware integration with Cisco, especially in terms of documentation and integration tools. Support of NVIDIA integration would also make it better.
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
I use Cisco UCS E-Series Servers ( /products/cisco-ucs-e-series-servers-reviews ) for managing our IT infrastructure and supporting AI-driven projects. The integration with Cisco routers simplifies...
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 needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Regarding how Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved, something personal to me is the number of PCI Express slots in the back; however, that is an engineering choice. Otherwise, I am happy with th...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers serve as IO machines for talking to PCI Express devices. The use cases change over time, and I push data to the network for in-flight compute.
 

Also Known As

UCS E-Series Servers
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Navaho,  MiroNet AG, Columbia Sportswear
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs. Dell PowerEdge R-Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.