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

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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
12th
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
6.9
Number of Reviews
353
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (4th), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 3.7%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 4.8%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series4.8%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.7%
Other91.5%
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.
Jose Oliveira - PeerSpot reviewer
Diretor at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Local servers have delivered long-term ERP and virtualization performance while reducing cloud costs
In terms of improving Dell PowerEdge R-Series, to be honest, the product has so many options that I find it very difficult to improve it in terms of product itself. Of course, there will always be some technological evolution and new components, but what the product offers in each generation, and I've already followed five or six generations of Dell PowerEdge from generation 11 up to generation 17, it has always kept pace with technological innovation. In terms of storage, it's always extremely in line with what the market is offering. In terms of memory, each new generation always follows the newest RAM trends. Processors also have both AMD and Intel options. I believe the product already has very high maturity. The availability of redundant power supplies and the availability of off-band management via iDRAC are excellent. The product is already extremely solid and reliable. The most I could perhaps say is that sometimes in some operations, I find iDRAC a bit slow, but that's a characteristic of off-band management because performance comes from a separate card that has its own processor and its own memory, so sometimes it's not as fast as I'd expect from the machine itself. Overall, there really isn't much to say because the product is extremely robust and efficient.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco UCS E-Series Servers have been reliable, and it took almost five years for any hardware failure, which was only about a $100 repair, so nothing too major."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"The product is overall stable."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, the Cisco chassis is pretty good, pretty stable and easier to configure as compared to HP and others."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"The benefits they have seen from using Dell PowerEdge R-Series are that it is more resilient and has strong security, and the versatility and the capabilities and features of the device are awesome."
"The high availability feature impacts my team's daily routine positively. When we need to do any kind of maintenance, it is possible to move the entire virtual environment to one server while the other keeps running."
"The rapid rail system is valuable. We have staff working at night to perform installations, and the nature of our business involves real-time transactions with changes made outside of regular hours."
"Since I started using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, it has had a positive impact on my organization as I have experienced zero outages due to hardware problems."
"Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series with the AI workload, we have our own version of ChatGPT inside, and it helps us get answers much quicker."
"They are very stable. They are rock solid. I am happy with them."
"When they switched to Dell PowerEdge R660 equipment, it was an improvement in every aspect, including support, performance, profitability, and price."
"What we like the most is the stability, because without shutdowns our VMs and servers are up and running fine."
 

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 platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"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 think that's probably one of the biggest failure points with Cisco, from their documentation all the way to their products."
"The biggest pain point for us is the matrix for the firmware upgrades. It is a pain. You look at that thing, you might as well be reading Greek. It would be a whole lot better if they could clean up their documentation on it."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"Dell needs to focus more on SMBs, helping us get the most out of our products."
"Even though there is some downtime, they are durable."
"The versions that I work with, they used to max out on memory, on RAM, quickly, so I'd want to think in the newer versions, they actually allocate more processing power and more RAM to them."
"For our particular use case, we need very large hard drives, and the world keeps moving away from big hard drives to small SSDs."
"It's more from the pandemic, however, the logistics part of it could be better."
"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."
"The only growth complexity with Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that the cost of adding memory after the first purchase is always high."
"Many things could be improved, and maybe Dell PowerEdge R-Series could help us with that, but that would require development, and it is possible that it could definitely help us."
 

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."
"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 product is expensive."
"I am satisfied with the pricing of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and would rate the cost as seven out of ten, with ten being the best."
"The solution’s pricing is competitive with other products."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable. We pay a basic premium with a military premium on top of that."
"It is expensive. The price needs to be more competitive. Additional licenses are required to enable some of the features for scalability."
"PowerEdge is not a cheap product. It's a quality product, but there is always competition. If you want to buy a server, you need an operating system, and most of it is Microsoft. A bundled solution costs less than a separate operating system and hardware."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"It's abundantly clear that the specific licensing requirements will be dictated by the intricacies of the machinery we deploy."
"The more complex the server requirements, the more expensive it gets."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business125
Midsize Enterprise70
Large Enterprise156
 

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?
Dell PowerEdge R-Series could improve by addressing the issue of temperatures and problems with RAM memory, as those are generally where we have had issues. The modules, specifically the DIMMs, ten...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is for private cloud infrastructure. A specific example of how I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series in my environment is for private cloud provisioning for 5G....
 

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: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.