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Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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
6.9
Number of Reviews
353
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (4th), Blade Servers (2nd)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 19.9%, down from 27.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 6.0%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series19.9%
HPE Apollo Systems6.0%
Other74.1%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Oliveira - PeerSpot reviewer
Diretor at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Local servers have delivered long-term ERP and virtualization performance while reducing cloud costs
In terms of improving Dell PowerEdge R-Series, to be honest, the product has so many options that I find it very difficult to improve it in terms of product itself. Of course, there will always be some technological evolution and new components, but what the product offers in each generation, and I've already followed five or six generations of Dell PowerEdge from generation 11 up to generation 17, it has always kept pace with technological innovation. In terms of storage, it's always extremely in line with what the market is offering. In terms of memory, each new generation always follows the newest RAM trends. Processors also have both AMD and Intel options. I believe the product already has very high maturity. The availability of redundant power supplies and the availability of off-band management via iDRAC are excellent. The product is already extremely solid and reliable. The most I could perhaps say is that sometimes in some operations, I find iDRAC a bit slow, but that's a characteristic of off-band management because performance comes from a separate card that has its own processor and its own memory, so sometimes it's not as fast as I'd expect from the machine itself. Overall, there really isn't much to say because the product is extremely robust and efficient.
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

"I appreciate Dell solutions because they are reliable, and we know what we are getting; if we do need support, it is quick."
"A company of any size needs servers, and Dell PowerEdge ranges are very good."
"The most valuable feature is standardization because we have a small group of IT resources that need to do the operational tasks."
"The standout feature is the remote control accessibility, which allows our team to access and manage the servers locally or remotely."
"They are good, the visibility of Dell is very strong in Egypt, especially in the north where most of the engineers are, and we also have a distributor who is very supportive and helps us in training and sizing."
"I find great value in Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, particularly in their excellent serviceability."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can help with that because it is the platform our whole business runs on - it's the foundation."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have been a cornerstone of our infrastructure portfolio, allowing us to enhance service quality, increase business agility and expand our enterprise client base with confidence."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"It's very reliable, I haven't had a single failure at all in the year and a half; not the slightest problem with it, and it's been a pretty good product so far."
"We're going to buy another Apollo 6500. We may configure it with half the number of GPUs because that may be all we need. In a sense, we can see the Apollo 6500 being so powerful that we only need half the GPU capability that we have now."
"We previously used the DL380s; compared to those, Apollo has roughly four times the amount of space per server, which means we can really do a lot."
"We usually use three blades for two-rack units, and with enough storage, it's really a small system with a powerful CPU, powerful hard drives, powerful disks."
 

Cons

"The security of this solution could be improved. We have very specific needs as an engineering company and require multiple layers of security. This is not offered when implementing the Dell hardware."
"Being in Belgium, which is a small country, we might be considered too small for Dell since we only have 40 Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. This sometimes affects our ability to receive deployment support."
"It's not the perfect solution but it is reasonable."
"My only complaint would be if you're calling the specific fed line, sometimes they don't transfer you, and they want to get information that you can't give them before they do, even if you call the dedicated fed line, which is not always consistent, depending on the time of day."
"We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in the data center. We put the racks in bays. They can improve the compactness so that we can put more of them."
"Perhaps they could make it more power efficient. They're pretty good, but there's always room for improvement. Also, they could try to reduce heat generation."
"PowerEdge could have more configuration options, such as the ability to combine different CPUs, memory volumes, data storage, and memory. The new Intel-based ones are a bit power-hungry."
"The flexibility of card use could be improved."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"Big stability issues with the CPU on the first generation which made them virtually unusable."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"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."
"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."
"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."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a strong agreement in place with our parent company, that typically ensures favorable pricing terms for us, although occasionally we may need to negotiate with Dell representatives for further discounts to provide competitive pricing to our customers."
"Regarding the pricing, it seems fair."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"They seem to have become more expensive. I've not done a comparison with other vendors recently. If the price increases more, we would need to do a comparison next year just to make sure that we are benchmarking our server purchases correctly."
"Dell's solution was cheaper than HP's solution."
"They are fairly priced."
"They are affordable. Even during our recent procurement, the cost of Dell servers was lower than that of HPE."
"The overall pricing and licensing are fair according to the market."
"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."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business125
Midsize Enterprise70
Large Enterprise156
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
 

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 needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Dell PowerEdge R-Series could improve by addressing the issue of temperatures and problems with RAM memory, as those are generally where we have had issues. The modules, specifically the DIMMs, ten...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is for private cloud infrastructure. A specific example of how I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series in my environment is for private cloud provisioning for 5G....
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.
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...
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 ...
 

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: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.