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Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
7.2
Number of Reviews
271
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (2nd), Blade Servers (4th)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 25.4%, down from 27.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 4.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series25.4%
HPE Apollo Systems4.1%
Other70.5%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Tom van Mil - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Gökhan  DURMAZ - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The iDRAC is an excellent service; it allows us to install and deploy our software remotely."
"Since there have been no problems with them, except for routine battery changes, we continue to use Dell’s reliable hardware."
"The most valuable features are resiliency, reliability, easy installation, maintenance, and compatibility with other systems or servers."
"They are incredibly valuable because they are both user-friendly and powerful for managing hardware."
"There are fewer complications than what we had before with other brands."
"Ease of use."
"Dell PowerEdge R-Series scales with the growing needs of my company as we add more servers and expand the clusters, making the process straightforward."
"PowerEdge Rack Servers are very good for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."
"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."
"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."
"Stability has been extremely good."
"I find HPE Apollo Systems to be scalable and efficient for AI initiatives, and the environmental efficiency has a significant impact on operational costs."
"It's pretty flexible. You can choose how much storage you put on the server. You can have one to three nodes, depending on whether you want more CPU or storage."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
 

Cons

"The analytics reports could be more useful."
"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 physical design could be improved as it is heavy and quite large when racked."
"I am having a memory speed issue that I would like to be fixed."
"In terms of energy use, it takes up a lot."
"The only thing that could be improved is documentation. The product is highly customizable with a lot of options for each component."
"My experience with customer service is that it can sometimes be challenging because there are GPUs in that system. When there is an error and the customer support asks if I can remove all kinds of items like network cards and GPUs, I have to do that myself."
"The design, in terms of power efficiency, can be improved."
"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."
"We have tried to used standardization using Ubuntu Linux and it's been hard. They had some difficulties getting the RAID configuration up and running because there are no drivers for it. It's not supported by HPE."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"I would want to see the flexibility of being able to run various network protocols including InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, as well as iSCSI, with iSCSI going up to 100 gigabytes per second -that would be outstanding."
"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."
"Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall."
"There is a shared battery for all cache controllers in the node. When you have to replace that element, you have to take down all three nodes and not just one."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing and licensing are fair according to the market."
"PowerEdge is not a cheap product. It's a quality product, but there is always competition. If you want to buy a server, you need an operating system, and most of it is Microsoft. A bundled solution costs less than a separate operating system and hardware."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The price of this solution is reasonable. It's very comparable to similar solutions."
"It's a one-time licensing fee for the device and we pay a quota per year for the support."
"I wouldn't say the solution's pricing is the best, but it's very competitive."
"At present, the pricing seems a bit high for us."
"The pricing is great; very competitive. That's the reason we bought hundreds of them."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"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."
"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."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business98
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise113
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
 

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....
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?
I do not see any area for improvement in Dell PowerEdge R-Series, particularly nothing very significant. I do not know what new features Dell could add to Dell PowerEdge R-Series; I have no idea, a...
What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?
Some features could be added to HPE Apollo Systems in the future, and I feel that some capability is needed. HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability. Two f...
What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?
I have been distributing this product for three years. I don't have specific use cases, and everything about the major use case for HPE Apollo Systems is good. I don't know the purpose clients are ...
What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?
I am not using these products today, and I do not work with some specific firewalls. My company is TD Synnex, a distributor company, and I work for this company. My email is , and my first name is ...
 

Also Known As

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Weta Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.