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Dell PowerEdge XR-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

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
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Rugged Servers (1st)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 3.9%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Apollo Systems3.9%
Dell PowerEdge XR-Series1.6%
Other94.5%
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

"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 scalability of the Dell XR2 Rugged Server is good and easy to do."
"Stability, good performance, and good tools to manage the system are the best features for me."
"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 storage and the disc performance in terms of IOPS is great."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."
"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."
"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."
"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
 

Cons

"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."
"Service is a specific aspect that could be improved, but it is nothing bad."
"It lacks a modular option to expand to a 16-bay system."
"The support could work faster, but that is the only small thing that could be better."
"Dell XR2 Rugged Server could improve if there was more customization allowed."
"Regarding the weakness of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series, I think the main drawback is that it is more expensive than other servers."
"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."
"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 would like to see improved cooling because that is quite an issue. If you put that much compute power into a single rack, cooling really becomes an issue. And there is room for improvement there."
"The technical support for HPE Apollo Systems 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."
"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."
"We could, perhaps, use more GPUs in the future, go from eight to 16 GPUs per instance. That could run head-to-head against the DGX-1, the DGX-2 that NVIDIA has developed in their own chassis. That would be interesting to see."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of one Dell XR2 Rugged Server is approximately $10,000."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
University
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
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?
The pricing, the setup cost, and the licensing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is competitive. It is based on the deal and everything involved. I will say that because Dell is a partner of choice for us...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
There is always room for improvement. Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is acceptable and will work. Service is a specific aspect that could be improved, but it is nothing bad. The service is better than ba...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
In the data center, Dell PowerEdge XR-Series runs through the router and the switch.Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is beginning to play a role in AI initiatives in the company. The server will be turned ...
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: December 2025.
881,346 professionals have used our research since 2012.