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Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

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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
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Synergy
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 HPE Synergy is 8.6%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy8.6%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.7%
Other87.7%
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.
MS
Works at Saudi Telecom Company
Manage servers efficiently with an integrated view while reducing downtime
My use case is to serve the complete IT environment of the telecom, including all cloud applications. I use HPE Synergy servers for my private cloud and for network management systems. 70% of my workload is running on HPE servers The integrated view, such as managing complete servers and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"The product is overall stable."
"What I can advise other prospective customers is that they should not worry about Cisco's support, stability, and performance."
"The server management and automation capabilities have been outstanding in automation, greatly benefiting our IT team."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability."
"Cisco has better visibility and manageability for disaster recovery."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"Great flexibility including configuring the interconnects on the use of the chassis."
"The stability is very good. We haven't had any outages."
"For us, it's all about up-time and a good performance experience for our customers and Synergy helps us do that."
"The price is reasonable, and the stability and scalability are okay. We bought the solution because it suits our needs."
"The most valuable features about Synergy is the composability of it."
"Synergy is much easier to use, which is saving us time. We are able to set the profiles for firmware upgrades. This makes the process for the care and feeding of the IT environment much simpler, quicker, and cleaner."
"The solution helps us to implement new business requirements quickly with some app deployments."
"The Synergy environment provides us with one view. We're able to manage the entire stack, top to bottom, from that single view."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"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."
"The tool must be made compatible with multi-vendor ecosystems."
"I'd like to see the firmware updates, as well as the built-in OneView and imager in Composer, become a little more powerful and faster."
"In the Generation 10 modules, we have observed that very often the server has hardware issues."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"The initial setup was complex. We had a couple of bright engineers working on it, and they figured out a lot of things that they don't know... The problem was that they couldn't find documentation easily, to walk them through setup when they just didn't know the platform."
"I think the main issue with Synergy is a topology that HPE defines to connecting and creating a cluster."
"When templates are created, there are some steps where you need to reboot the machines. Being in production, this is not a good idea. For example, if you reconfigure the network, you should not have to reboot the machine. You should just apply the new template and that's it."
"Operationally, it is a little bit challenging to manage at this point. When you add onto it, you have to be very aware of where you are in the frame, on your count, and what components."
"I rate this solution a seven out of 10 because I think we were promised a little more than we were given."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive, they are quite pricey."
"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 pricing of the solution is reasonable. From a commercial point of view, the prices are okay."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"Nutanix was really hard to implement, and it was very pricey compared to what we get from Synergy."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."
"Our IT infrastructure costs have gone up each year by 20 percent."
"We pay about £500 for the solution."
"The solution can be expensive because it requires both hardware and software purchases."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"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 bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Wholesaler/Distributor
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction 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 Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

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...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

UCS E-Series Servers
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Navaho,  MiroNet AG, Columbia Sportswear
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs. HPE Synergy and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.