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Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs HPE Synergy 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
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
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS E-Series Servers is 3.6%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Synergy is 9.2%, down from 21.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy9.2%
Cisco UCS E-Series Servers3.6%
Other87.2%
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.
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

"What I can advise other prospective customers is that they should not worry about Cisco's support, stability, and performance."
"The product's most valuable features are stability, speed, and scalability."
"The most valuable features are that they are efficient and easy to setup."
"Overall, the Cisco chassis is pretty good, pretty stable and easier to configure as compared to HP and others."
"Cisco has better visibility and manageability for disaster recovery."
"Stability-wise, it is a good product that remains stable."
"They are really easy to maintain. I've added RAM to them. I've done a lot of other things with the virtualization."
"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."
"As a result of the solution, our IT infrastructure is about 60 percent more efficient than it used to be."
"For us, it's all about up-time and a good performance experience for our customers and Synergy helps us do that."
"Orchestrating automations is great because you can connect to other tools with the REST API and automate components."
"The solution is very stable; there are no bugs or glitches, it does not crash or freeze, and the performance is great."
"The i3S module can be configured to provision storage to all blade servers and boot to any operating system without needing local hard drives."
"HPE Synergy software-defined infrastructure simplifies our operations by quickening deployment, quickening roll-out and services to our clinicians and physicians."
"It makes it simpler for me to manage my environment. It is one pane of glass, compared to multiple."
"The solution is really good, works well, and has passed all internal tests."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 think that's probably one of the biggest failure points with Cisco, from their documentation all the way to their products."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. There could be more collaborative tools included."
"The processing capacity could be improved."
"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 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."
"It is not a solution that is cloud ready."
"It has affected the productivity of our development team in a bad way."
"The solution should support Cisco or other vendor interconnect models."
"I would like more storage with this solution, because we still need 3PAR or other storage outside the box for the amount of data that we have."
"The cost is quite high."
"The cost is high or a big investment and that is a drawback for some customers."
"The performance could be better. The converged network cards initially didn't work. However, later on in the newer version, they came up with 50 GB network cards to replace the 20 GB ones, and it's perfectly fine now. At times, it could also be more stable."
"When I get to a human being, technical support is great; up until then, it's a big challenge."
"HPE Synergy could improve its remote support."
 

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."
"We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"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 do CAPEX."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."
"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
"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
19%
Computer Software Company
9%
Wholesaler/Distributor
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing 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: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.