Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
208
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd), Data Center Networking (3rd), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 2.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 1.6%, 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 product is overall stable."
"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."
"The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team."
"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."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"Technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is pretty much the same thing that I mentioned with PowerStore: the simplicity, the resiliency, and the fact that it just works."
"The OpenMange console is effective."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers scale very well with the growing needs of my company."
"The use of OpenManage Console reduces the time it takes to manage PowerEdge Rack Servers in terms of updates and maintenance."
"The most valuable feature, when I compare Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers with other brands available, is the price versus performance, as I get more for what I pay, and mostly, we use this for our CAD workloads."
"The solution is very strong and reliable."
"Overall, I rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers nine to ten as the product has maintained a strong reputation over time."
 

Cons

"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"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 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."
"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."
"All of the marketing terminologies from Dell are very complicated as they have names that sometimes involve the same technology."
"There is a suggestion to potentially revisit pricing."
"There might be room for improvement in terms of efficiency, particularly with PowerEdge servers."
"The price could possibly use improvement. Dell servers are not the most affordable, and pricing is always a consideration. Otherwise, I don't see any specific areas for improvement."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"The pricing for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers would be absolutely better."
"The management of the security architecture could be improved. It takes some time and can be challenging."
"I would like them to add more NVMe slots. That would be good. That way, it would have better performance, e.g., enough storage for better performance than a spinning disk."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"They are affordable. Even during our recent procurement, the cost of Dell servers was lower than that of HPE."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The pricing for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is on par with everything else at the moment."
"I don't see any issues with respect to licensing. It's power-efficient, so it's beneficial to the customers price-wise. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"Dell's solution was cheaper than HP's solution."
"We weren't paying very much, but it was at the end of the lifecycle. We are now using the VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure, and the pricing was very similar for the same amount of power but with easier automation."
"The product is cheaper than HP servers, but the price could always be better."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Blade Servers solutions are best for your needs.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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 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.
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 higher hardware costs compared to HPE ProLiant servers, which are cheaper. From reliability, performance, and sustainability perspectives, Dell PowerEdge Rack Serve...
 

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: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.