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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
12
Ranking in other categories
Rugged Servers (1st)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is 2.4%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 5.2%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge XR-Series2.4%
HPE Apollo Systems5.2%
Other92.4%
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."
"Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is a super server, so compared to HP, I see big differences from the technical side."
"Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is very popular and we are selling this as a standard."
"The most positive aspect of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is the availability, which is very high, and the support and services are very good."
"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."
"Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is better compared to other servers and runs more efficiently, with stability and reliability that have been good so far."
"What I like the most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is probably the Redfish manageability, which provides management, remote management, and remote configuration capabilities."
"The performance of the product in extreme conditions is good; it can run in critical workloads with not much hardware issue."
"It's very hard for a professor to amass the supercomputing resources, so I've been very fortunate to have that level of supercomputing at our disposal and that has really enabled us to do the world's leading superhuman AI research."
"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."
"It's pretty flexible."
"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."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"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."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
 

Cons

"Regarding the weakness of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series, I think the main drawback is that it is more expensive than other servers."
"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 see areas for improvement in Dell PowerEdge XR-Series as sometimes there is some delay during the boot time; we occasionally need to disable some ROM options to prevent a boot delay or a network boot loop."
"Dell XR2 Rugged Server could improve if there was more customization allowed."
"Service is a specific aspect that could be improved, but it is nothing bad."
"This can be better and could be improved."
"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."
"Customization could be improved; more customization options are needed."
"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."
"OpenView is a new product which does not support older versions of the hardware."
"If the workload is not purely sequential, then performance in the IO is less than optimal because it's optimized for streaming processing."
"The licensing could be greatly improved, I think."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."
"One drawback which I had: When I needed to expand storage on the Apollo, I had significant problems getting disks for it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of one Dell XR2 Rugged Server is approximately $10,000."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
 

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?
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

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: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.