Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the Rack Servers category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.1, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5. Dell Technologies holds a 21.0% mindshare in Rack Servers, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 5.7% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Read 318 Dell PowerEdge R-Series reviews

25,013 Views
20,761 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

HPE Apollo Systems

Read 25 HPE Apollo Systems reviews

3,294 Views
2,866 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

HPE Apollo Systems

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Dell PowerEdge R-Series and HPE Apollo Systems compete in the enterprise server category. Dell seems to have an edge in pricing and ROI due to its competitive and transparent pricing structure.

Features: Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers scalability, reliability, and intuitive management through iDRAC, with lifecycle management via OpenManage and robust security. HPE Apollo Systems excel in high-density storage and compute capacity for data-heavy applications and AI workloads, providing an adaptable environment with enhanced support for parallel processing.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerEdge R-Series could benefit from better pricing strategies, cleaner interfaces, and improved compatibility with external products. HPE Apollo Systems encounter high pricing challenges and limited scalability, which could improve with more flexible infrastructure integration and enhanced performance analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerEdge R-Series is versatile in deployment options, spanning private and hybrid clouds, with consistently high-rated technical support. HPE Apollo Systems benefit from strong on-premises deployments but have slightly lower customer support ratings and sometimes require improved communication in technical setups.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerEdge R-Series is recognized for its competitive pricing structure and clear licensing, resulting in cost savings and extended ROI. In contrast, HPE Apollo Systems are perceived as more expensive while still delivering solid investment returns in specific configurations like high-density storage.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems

September 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 913,924 peers since 2012

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

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Ranking in Rack Servers

1st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

318

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (3rd), Blade Servers (2nd)

HPE Apollo Systems

Ranking in Rack Servers

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Density Optimized Servers (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 21.0%, down from 27.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 5.7%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series	21.0%
HPE Apollo Systems	5.7%
Other	73.3%

Rack Servers

Featured Reviews

Tom van Mil

Systems Administrator at Lico Innovations B.v.

Supports flexible hosting needs through seamless upgradability and strong monitoring capabilities

The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for me are the feature richness and the upgradability. I really love the way that it is so dynamically applicable for every situation, and they manage to have an all-in-one solution for every single situation. Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio. Every time Dell is at the top of its game for us, and there is just no other brand for us that is able to reach that kind of price-to-performance ratio. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of my small company, such as iDRAC. The iDRAC system is a complete feature set for managing servers and hardware technically and monitoring-wise. It really fits in our system and our ecosystem, and monitoring-wise, it is excellent. They have all these sensors available via different protocols and end points, which I love, and the ability to manage and control everything via the iDRAC interface is just a welcome bonus. In our use case, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very flexible. It is another computer which helps a lot because of the durability over time. They keep running, making scalability for getting more of those resources in our environment so easy.

Read full review

Gökhan DURMAZ

Account Manager at TD SYNNEX

High-quality integration and strong support have optimized our rack server operations

HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity. When I speak about integrity, I speak about GPU integration or other integrations such as GPU integration, backup software integration, and hypervisor integration. Regarding the integration of high-speed interconnectors in HPE Apollo Systems, they impact computational tasks because the high-speed interconnect affects performance. I don't remember the specifics. Regarding the cooling technologies, they help to reduce operational costs. The positive impact I see from HPE Apollo Systems is that support is good and quality is good. In general, HPE Apollo Systems appears to be for rack servers with some optimization capabilities.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Virtualization and distributed power management are good and valuable features."

"They are very stable. They are rock solid. I am happy with them."

"Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio."

"The resiliency and stability of the products are fantastic."

"The initial setup is very good, not complex at all."

"Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization by making simulations easier and faster, reducing the solution solving time and the project delivery time, as well as the cycle time."

"I think the pricing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is acceptable and represents an advantage."

"Dell PowerEdge R-Series product is overall very stable, very mature, and support is excellent."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pros

"I find HPE Apollo Systems to be scalable and efficient for AI initiatives, and the environmental efficiency has a significant impact on operational costs."

"Not having to manage traditional NAS has made a big difference."

"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."

"For us, the most valuable features are the price and density."

"we can use the same platform for several use cases: Hadoop, Ceph, and we are considering the server for another use case right now. It's a single solution, we only have to integrate it once and we can use it for several technologies."

"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"

"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."

"My advice for someone considering HPE Apollo Systems is that if they are looking for consolidation and their workload involves high availability requirements, or if they want to utilize GPUs, then this is a machine that should be considered instead of deploying multiple machines and multiple systems."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

Cons

"The cost can be improved. For other use cases, we use Hitachi servers, which are a little cheaper but have similar functionality."

"There were some issues that I encountered with the servers, but it is a result of having multiple server generations with different processors in place, which caused some problems with HA and DRS with VMware, but these don't necessarily qualify as issues with the servers themselves."

"We'd want the solution to be faster, and of course, for them to bring down the price."

"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."

"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."

"They could make the service tags larger as I get older."

"I would say the pain points are better power usage and consumption; that's not up to Dell, that's up to the CPU manufacturers."

"I would like to see more information about server health and the server's state, on the front. HP has a little screen that shows server utilization, how many disks there are inside, and the power consumption. HP also shows an alert if there is a malfunction of any device inside."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series cons

"We could, perhaps, use more GPUs in the future, go from eight to 16 GPUs per instance. That could run head-to-head against the DGX-1, the DGX-2 that NVIDIA has developed in their own chassis. That would be interesting to see."

"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."

"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."

"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."

"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."

"One drawback which I had: When I needed to expand storage on the Apollo, I had significant problems getting disks for it. It was a very long wait-time. So, if I were to give any advice in regards to improving this product, I would say make more of the 8TB disks available quicker."

"We are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."

"Big stability issues with the CPU on the first generation which made them virtually unusable."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing are fair."

"They are affordable. Even during our recent procurement, the cost of Dell servers was lower than that of HPE."

"The solution’s pricing is competitive with other products."

"The overall pricing and licensing are fair according to the market."

"We have not compared them with others. The price is okay, but they can always be a little bit cheaper."

"PowerEdge pricing is equivalent to that of all the others in the market."

"I personally think the pricing and licensing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is actually fairly decent, though the way the business runs leads to sticker shock anytime we give them a quote."

"The pricing is great; very competitive. That's the reason we bought hundreds of them."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pricing and cost advice

"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."

"The price of the solution is more expensive than Dell which is their main competitor. However, there are times we have managed to receive a comparable price."

"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."

"It is an expensive solution but it is worth the money. The standard licensing cost is for the GPU and the features that someone is using. There are additional charges but they depend on the solution."

"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	112
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	138

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

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....

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

The cost is one area Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved. If Dell PowerEdge R-Series could look at the price, that would be best. Whether it is good depends on if the company's budget is good.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series for installation, and all virtual VMware infrastructure is running on Dell PowerEdge servers. I am mostly using all infrastructure servers with Dell PowerEdge. I am ho...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?

It is too early to say what improvements HPE Apollo Systems could implement because the report still needs to come out and the customer needs to properly evaluate the solution.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?

My main use case for HPE Apollo Systems is replacing many of the servers and storage boxes at one of the customer's sites to achieve workload optimization and optimized solutions. Additionally, whe...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?

My advice for someone considering HPE Apollo Systems is that if they are looking for consolidation and their workload involves high availability requirements, or if they want to utilize GPUs, then ...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 32% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei FusionServer RH Series Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 4% of the time

HPE Synergy vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Moonshot vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 7% of the time

Lenovo High-Density Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 6% of the time

More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

September 2026

Download Dell PowerEdge R-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Apollo Systems

September 2026

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Also Known As

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo

Overview

PowerEdge R-Series delivers high performance, flexibility, and scalability for data centers. It supports demanding tasks with robust management tools and advanced cooling, providing reliability and efficiency across various workloads.

Engineered for large deployments, PowerEdge R-Series supports extensive configurations optimizing performance in data centers. With features like advanced cooling and energy-efficient architecture, it empowers organizations to manage heavy workloads while facilitating seamless scalability. It offers remote management, robust security, and integration with VMware ensuring operational excellence and high availability for business-critical applications.

What are the key features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series?

Scalability: Supports flexible configurations for diverse workloads.
Remote Management: iDRAC and OpenManage facilitate easy oversight.
Energy Efficiency: Architecture helps reduce energy consumption.
Security: Robust features ensure protected performance.
VMware Integration: Enhances manageability and productivity.

What benefits and ROI should you look for?

Performance: Handles high-performance and demanding tasks.
Flexibility: Offers easily upgradable configurations.
Reliability: Provides consistent performance with long-term support.
Efficiency: Reduces energy use and operational costs.
Ease of Use: Simplifies management and maintenance.

PowerEdge R-Series is deployed across industries for virtualization, database hosting, and application servers. It supports environments like VMware and Hyper-V for AI, cloud infrastructure, and computing tasks. Widely used by finance, healthcare, and academia, it enhances reliability and efficiency of IT infrastructure.

Dell Technologies

HPE Apollo Systems deliver high compute and storage density, scalability, and environmental efficiency with exceptional performance for AI initiatives and data capturing across diverse applications.

HPE Apollo Systems are characterized by their dense compute and storage capabilities, offering flexibility in configurations to meet the demands of AI, deep learning, and high-performance computing. Their management software simplifies deployment, ensuring effective performance across tasks that require significant storage. While Apollo Systems are designed for efficiency and scalability, improvements can be made in security, tech support, and integration with hypervisors and backup solutions. Enhancing cooling and licensing processes, connectivity, and faster drive writing capabilities are also areas for growth.

What are the key features of HPE Apollo Systems?

High Compute Density: Supports intense processing needs efficiently.
Scalability: Easily adaptable to growing data demands.
Environmental Efficiency: Minimizes energy consumption, enhancing sustainability.
Flexible Configurations: Caters to a range of applications from AI to data storage.
Reliable Performance: Consistently delivers under various workloads.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Cost Effectiveness: Reduces expenditure with its efficient design.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly fits into diverse IT environments.
Performance Enhancement: Boosts operational efficiency and output.
Easy Deployment: Streamlines the setup process for quick operation.

HPE Apollo Systems find extensive use in sectors such as telecom, supporting high-performance computing and AI workloads. They optimize Linux servers, replace legacy systems, and serve as storage solutions across industries. Their applications span from big data management in Splunk clusters to backup solutions in medical faculties, enhancing compute power and storage within compact racks.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco

Weta Digital

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems

September 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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