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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

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 Rack Servers
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd), Data Center Networking (4th), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 2.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 1.5%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

DavidMbugua - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable product with efficient security features
We use Cisco UCS E-Series Servers to host enterprise systems The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability. We rarely encounter downtime issues, and it has an expandable memory storage. Additionally, it blends well with Cisco's security tools. The platform's pricing…
Syed Masuood - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles workloads and diverse applications efficiently
We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload. For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time. We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"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."
"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"Cisco has better visibility and manageability for disaster recovery."
"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."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"The product is overall stable."
"From a technical perspective, the iDRAC system's most valuable feature is its performance, while from the customer's perspective, it is the other features."
"Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten."
"The standout feature is the remote control accessibility, which allows our team to access and manage the servers locally or remotely."
"It is pretty good at handling diverse applications. We have been using these servers for eight years. We have experienced good performance with them."
"Nowadays, iDRAC is very important. It is one of the features that we use the most because we do not always have physical access to our machines. iDRAC is a tool that we use daily. If we did not have it, it would be very complicated to manage the machines. This is a great feature."
"The quality of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is excellent; they never experience downtime."
"It is user friendly and easy to configure."
"I like how I can stack many servers on top of each other, and they work like a cloud."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"It's not the perfect solution but it is reasonable."
"I do not have any input as such. There can be a bit more expansive AI portfolio, but I have not worked on any AI projects with Dell, so I might not be up to date in knowledge."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"They should improve the centralized management interface. When you are going to deploy something, for example, VMware or RedHat, it should be easier to deploy a lot of servers. Now you have to do one at a time."
"The scalability could improve. If you want more scalability and high availability, you will have to change to a solution similar to VxRail."
"We have a cloud-first strategy, and hardware is starting to become more and more secondary, so we are not betting on it."
"The GUI could be improved. I primarily work with the command line, which enables you to do many things faster."
"All of the servers are in cluster mode and when PowerEdge Server is down, others are affected."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution 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 product is expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
"It's expensive, they are quite pricey."
"Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers are very expensive."
"Compared to other vendors, the prices are much lower."
"It's a bit of a shock when you have to find the money, but the pricing is very competitive, so I'm happy with that."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"The solution is expensive."
"Dell is somewhat more expensive than HPE."
"The tool's pricing is very good."
"We have not compared them with others. The price is okay, but they can always be a little bit cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS E-Series Servers?
The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included.
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 do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have pretty much progressed a lot if we look at what features are on them now. I don't know what more could be asked for, perhaps just faster performance. Every ( /produ...
 

Also Known As

UCS E-Series Servers
PowerEdge R
 

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 Rack Servers and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.