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Dell PowerEdge XR-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems comparison

 

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 XR-Series
Ranking in Rack Servers
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Rugged Servers (1st)
HPE Apollo Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is 2.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 5.5%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge XR-Series2.7%
HPE Apollo Systems5.5%
Other91.8%
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 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."
"Using Dell PowerEdge servers has indeed affected the overall flexibility of my customer's operations and businesses."
"Using these servers has helped to reduce unplanned production downtime."
"Dell XR2 Rugged Server's technology is always on the competitive edge, with the most current technology."
"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 Dell teams are always knowledgeable, always great to work with, and always on top of their game."
"The storage and the disc performance in terms of IOPS is great because of the RAID card which is built-in."
"We are running Apollo with SL-series servers and the best thing about them is the density of the storage area available."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"It's pretty flexible."
"Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do."
"We had a PoC, as I said, and we were happy with it and decided to implement it, as it satisfies all our needs and is the perfect solution."
"It's allowed us to compete with cloud storage providers like AWS to put together a scalable on-premises solution of more than 20PB at a similar pricepoint."
 

Cons

"I am not sure about return on investment with Dell PowerEdge XR-Series."
"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."
"In comparison with them, Dell hardware and services are good and fine, but they do not have any own operating systems."
"The support could work faster, but that is the only small thing that could be better."
"This can be better and could be improved."
"Certainly, the first negative aspect is the cost because the biggest challenge today is the way component costs are going higher."
"My assessment of the new Dell PowerEdge servers for energy consumption is that energy consumption is on par with what I've used in the past. I can't say it's been any better or any worse."
"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."
"If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system."
"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."
"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."
"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"Connectivity to the outside of the server needs to be improved at the same time the network is improving."
"We are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
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?
Using Dell PowerEdge XR-Series has helped reduce my total cost of ownership compared to other solutions such as HP or Lenovo, which are servers I have used. Dell is less expensive compared to Lenov...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
There are many areas to improve in Dell PowerEdge XR-Series. Eliminating the single point of failure on the network, such as a traditional setup with cloud or central data center outages that impac...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC XR2 Rugged Server?
I am a reseller for Dell PowerEdge XR-Series. As a partner, I have to provide the users and services for Dell PowerEdge XR-Series deployments or any kind of virtualization purpose.
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: June 2026.
903,996 professionals have used our research since 2012.