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Dell PowerEdge XR-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 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 XR-Series
Ranking in Rack Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Rugged Servers (1st)
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 XR-Series is 1.8%, up from 0.6% 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 XR-Series1.8%
HPE Apollo Systems4.1%
Other94.1%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Igor Tiskov - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Virtualization Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Redfish manageability has supported remote site operations and consistent private cloud deployment
I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved in appearance. I would say that the improvement opportunity is probably on the monitoring side, the overall monitoring side. I would love to see closer integration with different vendors. As a company, we are still using a multi-vendor approach and cannot go all-in with one single vendor. What we struggle with is that we cannot afford to have three different monitoring systems, management systems, or lifecycle management systems for different environments. I would love to see in the future how that integrates with other vendors as well. Perhaps not as a primary tool, but at least some features and functions from other vendors.
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 storage and the disc performance in terms of IOPS is great."
"I appreciate the management tool, iDRAC, in Dell PowerEdge XR-Series, as it is convenient for administrators to use when managing Dell PowerEdge XR-Series."
"The scalability of the Dell XR2 Rugged Server is good and easy to do."
"The best features in Dell PowerEdge XR-Series are all-flash storage, which is easy to implement and install, and it was also easy to upgrade."
"What I like the most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is probably the Redfish manageability, which provides management, remote management, and remote configuration capabilities."
"Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is better compared to other servers and runs more efficiently, with stability and reliability that have been good so far."
"The performance of the product in extreme conditions is good; it can run in critical workloads with not much hardware issue."
"The most positive aspect of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is the availability, which is very high, and the support and services are very good."
"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable. It is quite effective for the work for which we are using it. We are mainly running video servers on these, and we are quite happy with the resilience, density storage, and streaming capacity of the system."
"We are running Apollo with SL-series servers and the best thing about them is the density of the storage area available."
"It is a stable product; very reliable."
"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."
"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."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."
"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

"One of our issues is that we currently have an eight-bay system. I'd like to migrate to a 16-bay system, but there isn't a modular option available."
"I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved in appearance. I would say that the improvement opportunity is probably on the monitoring side, the overall monitoring side."
"Dell XR2 Rugged Server could improve if there was more customization allowed."
"I suggest virtualizing the CPU between multiple operating systems on the same server."
"Dell XR2 Rugged Server could improve if there was more customization allowed."
"It lacks a modular option to expand to a 16-bay system."
"Service is a specific aspect that could be improved, but it is nothing bad."
"The support could work faster, but that is the only small thing that could be better."
"Our first batch of Apollo servers that we got were so new that it was just hard to know kind of what to expect from HPE and what they wanted to deliver to us."
"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."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"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 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."
"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 quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of one Dell XR2 Rugged Server is approximately $10,000."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
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 Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
Regarding the price, Dell is slightly less expensive than HP, maybe in our area. I don't know about Europe, but in the Middle East, Dell prices are usually slightly better than HPE in an apple-to-a...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
I suggest virtualizing the CPU between multiple operating systems on the same server. Many vendors, like Nutanix, are already doing this. If you have this feature, you can partition the server itse...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
Dell PowerEdge XR-Series server was deployed for a cybersecurity application based on a recommendation from the vendor of the security software. Based on this recommendation, we have already integr...
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

XR2 Rugged Server
HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DIGISTOR - Secure Data Storage
Weta Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge XR-Series vs. HPE Apollo Systems and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.