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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 performance of the product in extreme conditions is good; it can run in critical workloads with not much hardware issue."
"Dell XR2 Rugged Server's technology is always on the competitive edge, with the most current technology."
"Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is a super server, so compared to HP, I see big differences from the technical side."
"The storage and the disc performance in terms of IOPS is great."
"The storage and the disc performance in terms of IOPS is great because of the RAID card which is built-in."
"Stability, good performance, and good tools to manage the system are the best features for me."
"The scalability of the Dell XR2 Rugged Server is good and easy to do."
"The most positive aspect of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series is the availability, which is very high, and the support and services are very good."
"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"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, and it's been a pretty good product so far."
"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"
"I find HPE Apollo Systems to be scalable and efficient for AI initiatives, and the environmental efficiency has a significant impact on operational costs."
"HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
 

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."
"Regarding the weakness of Dell PowerEdge XR-Series, I think the main drawback is that it is more expensive than other servers."
"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."
"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 suggest virtualizing the CPU between multiple operating systems on the same server."
"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."
"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 SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"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."
"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."
"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."
"The technical support for HPE Apollo Systems could be improved."
"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."
"Big stability issues with the CPU on the first generation which made them virtually unusable."
 

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."
"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
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 Business8
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.
892,611 professionals have used our research since 2012.