Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series comparison

Dell PowerEdge R-Series and Dell PowerEdge XE-Series are both solutions in the Rack Servers category. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0, while Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell PowerEdge R-Series holds a 26.4% mindshare in Rack Servers, compared to Dell PowerEdge XE-Series’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Dell PowerEdge R-Series users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Read 267 Dell PowerEdge R-Series reviews

13,148 Views
12,622 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Read 11 Dell PowerEdge XE-Series reviews

792 Views
792 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 2025

Dell PowerEdge R-Series and XE-Series compete in the high-performance server market, with the R-Series generally having the upper hand due to its scalability and ease of deployment.

Features: Dell PowerEdge R-Series is notable for its scalability, remote management via iDRAC, and smooth integration with management tools, enhancing its performance for various workloads. On the other hand, the XE-Series is known for its compatibility with VMware, multi-versioning support for endpoint security, and a strong focus on security and reliability.

Room for Improvement: The R-Series could improve in centralized management and licensing simplicity, power efficiency, and faster feature deployment. The XE-Series needs better standalone server extendability and more seamless integration into broader IT infrastructures. Additionally, XE-Series support can be improved in terms of response time and stability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both series are primarily deployed on-premises, although the R-Series has slightly more deployment diversity across clouds. Customer support for both is generally praised, with the R-Series having more responsive and engaged support teams, though XE-Series sometimes faces support delays.

Pricing and ROI: The R-Series offers competitive pricing and good value for performance, though hardware costs can be high. The XE-Series competes with flexible licensing options, though prices can be high in some regions. Both series deliver strong ROI, with XE-Series excelling in maintenance savings and R-Series praised for longevity.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. Dell PowerEdge XE-Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

December 2025

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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

267

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (2nd), Data Center Networking (4th), Blade Servers (4th)

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Ranking in Rack Servers

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 26.4%, down from 27.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is 2.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Rack Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series	26.4%
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series	2.0%
Other	71.6%

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

Hany Magdy

CEO at Matrix ITS

Positive feedback highlights seamless integration and exceptional support

The reviewer primarily works with HCI, specifically Dell VxRail Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. Dell's HCI solution is considered superior to HP's in Egypt, where most customers prefer VxRail. For HP products, they provide blades, servers, C7000, and DL380. Dell's product range includes servers, storage, and hyper-converged infrastructures. Dell offers better pricing for server and technology, especially for HCI since they use VMware, which is considered one of the best hypervisors. Dell's Data Domain is recognized as the leading backup appliance globally, offering cyber resilience backup solutions. The reviewer has experience with Dell PowerProtect from eight years ago and Dell Avamar, which is particularly suitable for larger companies and virtual environments. They have also worked with Unity, VNX, and VMAX all-flash storage solutions, with the VMAX implementation using all NVMe (non-volatile memory). For backup solutions, they utilize GBS, Veeam, Veritas, and Dell solutions including DBS and Data Domain. The reviewer rates this solution 9 out of 10.

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

"We can pull out elements and change them ourselves."

"The most valuable feature is standardization because we have a small group of IT resources that need to do the operational tasks."

"I appreciate all these other features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series as they are intuitive and ready to go—I don't need to configure for hours; I just plug it in, configure two or three things, power cycle it, and that's it."

"The availability is excellent."

"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is a user-friendly solution that provides performance stability."

"However, I have had very good experiences with Dell systems, and the price-performance ratio has always been great."

"The best features of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are the service, the availability of the equipment, and the relational price quality."

"I'd give Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a rating of ten out of ten."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pros

"One of the most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge XE Servers is the ease of fixing issues if there are any."

"The most valuable feature of these servers is the ability to store a lot—the capacity and the number of hard disk drives."

"The strong point of this solution is its compatibility with VMware and its resilience."

"The most valuable feature is that it can support up to 32 drives of internal storage."

"In general, it works well. We haven't had issues."

"The resource management features are valuable."

"The solution is flexible in my experience."

"Its reliability and consistency are most valuable."

More Dell PowerEdge XE-Series pros

Cons

"While I wouldn't call it a problem, physically mounting the servers into the rails that come with the servers can be a challenge. They could be engineered to be a little bit easier to use. It's not that significant, we can manage it, but you need at least two people to do it together because they're a bit heavy."

"The scalability could improve. If you want more scalability and high availability, you will have to change to a solution similar to VxRail."

"Until they get new technology and density, it would be nice to see four nodes in a one-year package instead of a three-year package."

"It needs improvements in the thermal design and the management of servers."

"I chose a rating of nine instead of ten because there is always room for improvements in technology."

"The only aspect that might raise it to a ten is the response time for quote turnaround; it used to be one day, however, it now seems to take longer since the merger of Dell and EMC."

"Its price could be better."

"The grade store disks sometimes break, indicating an area for improvement in longevity and reliability. They need to improve the durability of the disks."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series cons

"Dell PowerEdge XE Servers can improve by adapting HCI technology."

"In future releases, there should be more support options for the latest processor."

"Upgrading can be a bit difficult."

"It should be easier to extend PowerEdge XE servers. We haven't architected them with an eye toward scalability. They have a fixed number of slots for hard drives, which is enough for our present use case, However, we would have more options if we could extend that. We could deploy the servers in a broader range of use cases with different requirements. It's fine for our current deployment with only a few thousand users. We're exploring other solutions like such as VxRail or PowerFlex for larger public-facing use cases."

"The support team must improve the speed of response."

"I would like to have support for performing a detailed analysis of the server from a mobile device."

"We use OpenManager a lot, and that can be a bit clunky at times. They can make that better."

"It is mostly stable, but the usual problem would be, for example, upgrading to a newer version of VMware or dealing with compatibility issues during the process."

More Dell PowerEdge XE-Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheaper than HP servers, but the price could always be better."

"The pricing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been a little problematic. It was sticker shock with our most recent purchase compared to the previous one, and there's a gap in pricing at our current level because what we do isn't very compute-intensive, resulting in a mismatch where we fit into an in-between category without an exact solution available."

"Dell is priced better than alternative solutions."

"I don't see any issues with respect to licensing. It's power-efficient, so it's beneficial to the customers price-wise. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."

"We do use Dell's OpenManage console. It is easy to use this console for lifecycle management or PowerEdge servers."

"It is expensive. The price needs to be more competitive. Additional licenses are required to enable some of the features for scalability."

"The solution's analytics helped to decrease production downtime by at least 30%."

"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."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pricing and cost advice

"Dell has competitive pricing."

"There are different types of licensing available, that works well for customers. The product is not very much to purchase."

"This solution is priced very reasonably."

"You always want slightly cheaper, but overall, they are quite comparable and quite neutral."

"If you want an SLA for parts and equipment then you need to purchase a support agreement."

"The pricing model is quite competitive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	95
Midsize Enterprise	58
Large Enterprise	112

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	3

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 do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

I do not have anything that I believe could be improved about Dell servers. However, I would like to see a range for AI that is more accessible for companies that do not have significant budgets. T...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?

For Dell PowerEdge XE Servers, particularly for standalone servers, extendability would be a great improvement. This feature is currently available only with virtualization environment. Adding exte...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?

I worked with HP Blade Servers including HP Integrity and Altex for the banking sector where I sold blade servers. I have not sold HP Superdome X or HP NonStop. The customers are using it for big d...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 39% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 24% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 6% of the time

Fujitsu Primergy BX900 Series vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Compared 1% of the time

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series Competitors

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

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Apollo Systems vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XR-Series vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle SPARC Servers vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 15% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 11% of the time

More Dell PowerEdge XE-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

January 2026

Download Dell PowerEdge R-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Rack Servers

December 2025

Download Dell PowerEdge XE-Series product report

Also Known As

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

PowerEdge XE Servers

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

The PowerEdge XE-Series caters to AI-centric workloads by offering exceptional GPU support and processing power for demanding tasks like inferencing and large-scale training, making it ideal for organizations aiming to innovate with AI.

PowerEdge XE-Series stands out in modern GPU-centric computing with its purpose-built design for AI acceleration. Known for handling extreme workloads like model fine-tuning and AI-driven applications, it supports high-density GPU configurations and advanced thermal management. Its vast storage capacity and compatibility with VMware ensure reliable performance across virtualization, big data, and analytics while providing trusted security integration and robust scalability options. However, improvements in processor support, reliability, and management monitoring are sought by users.

What are the key features of PowerEdge XE-Series?

High-Density GPU Support: Configures multiple GPUs for demanding AI tasks.
Advanced Thermal Design: Optimizes cooling for enhanced performance.
Vast Storage Capacity: Supports up to 32 drives for extensive data management.
Compatibility: Works seamlessly with platforms like VMware.
Security Integration: Includes trusted platform modules for data protection.

What benefits should users expect from PowerEdge XE-Series?

Efficient AI Management: Enhances AI workloads with advanced processing.
Scalability: Adapts to growing demands in virtualization and big data.
Security: Offers robust data protection and reliability.
Improved Resource Management: Facilitates straightforward setup and usage.

In different industries, PowerEdge XE-Series is utilized for hosting SaaS, high-performance computing, and general-purpose servers. System integrators use it in client networks for applications like Hadoop, backup, and ERP. It supports virtualization and hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. Real estate sectors leverage iDRAC for efficient management, enhancing data security, power, and network redundancy.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

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

Epsilon, ROZETTA CORP, JIGUANG, RACKSPACE, NEW BELGIUM BREWING

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

December 2025

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