HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

The compared HPE Apollo Systems and HPE Synergy solutions aren't in the same category. HPE Apollo Systems is ranked #2 in DOS , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 17.8% mindshare in the category. HPE Synergy is ranked #1 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 17.4% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of HPE Apollo Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of HPE Synergy users who would recommend it.

HPE Apollo Systems

Read 23 HPE Apollo Systems reviews

1,890 Views
189 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 91 HPE Synergy reviews

3,200 Views
2,144 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

HPE Apollo Systems

HPE Synergy

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Apollo Systems and HPE Synergy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Density Optimized Servers.

To learn more, read our detailed Density Optimized Servers Report (Updated: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Density Optimized Servers

October 2025

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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

HPE Apollo Systems

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

4.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Rack Servers (7th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)

HPE Synergy

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Blade Servers (1st), Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. HPE Apollo Systems is designed for Density Optimized Servers and holds a mindshare of 17.8%, down 27.2% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 17.4% mindshare, down 21.2% since last year.

Density Optimized Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Apollo Systems	17.8%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series	25.5%
Huawei FusionServer X Series	17.1%
Other	39.6%

Density Optimized Servers

Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Synergy	17.4%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series	14.2%
HPE BladeSystem	12.9%
Other	55.5%

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Aruna Udawatte

Director -Digital Transformation at Convergence

An affordable and easy-to-implement solution, but its after-sales support and technical support should be improved

We use HPE Apollo for specific requirements of Linux servers HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products. HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved. The solution should provide fast delivery when it comes to replacing a…

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CarlosArdila

Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago

Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis

The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"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."

"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."

"It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems"

"HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity."

"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."

"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."

"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."

"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."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

"HPE Synergy is a stable solution."

"It makes it simpler for me to manage my environment. It is one pane of glass, compared to multiple."

"The most valuable features are the converged network adapters."

"Changing the form factor in Synergy allows us to have more RAM, which is significantly helpful for us."

"On the previous HPE platform, we struggled because everything was independent. We had to manage firmware on each server, storage and network configuration on each server. Synergy is template-driven so we can ensure consistency of all of those settings. It allows us to standardize configuration and ensure consistency across the board."

"It's very scalable. We like the idea that we can put four chassis in one of our racks, and we can connect up to 25 chassis, so the scalability to us, and being able to sync all those into one management portal, is unheard of. You can't really sync that many blades and chassis together in any other platform."

"We bought it with the intent to replace the c7000 workstation blades. It is bigger than the workstation blades in core count, memory, and graphical capabilities. So, it has broadened us in that regard, and we have more capabilities."

"The solution helps us to implement new business requirements quickly, by using the Composer for efficiency. It has also improved the productivity of our development team due to the efficiency of being able to deploy via Composer."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"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."

"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 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."

"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."

"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."

"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

"Product documentation is disorganized."

"I would like the ability to have my storage components accessed from any other frame across the backplane. If we have a storage module and we run out of space in that frame, it'd be nice to be able to share it across the frames. You can do it with hyperconverged. Why can't you do it with Synergy?"

"I think we were promised a little more than we were given. It's true, they are working very hard to try to help remedy that."

"The user interface could be more user-friendly. It's for admins, and you should have the knowledge to use it."

"We haven't seen any ROI, and it hasn't reduced our cost of operations."

"Instead of having Synergy vertical, make it horizontal. It is easier to stick in when it is vertical."

"I would be more comfortable if Ansible actually rolled back the data used for automating platforms. If it could be communicated to the upstream Ansible, I wouldn't need to go back and forth and validate the libraries as we upgrade the Ansible version."

"The speed in OneView and how it updates the entire configuration needs improvement. If they can do that, and it could be a little more clear on what impact different actions will have for certain things, that would be good."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."

"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."

"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."

"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."

"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."

"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."

"We are satisfied with its price."

"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."

"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."

"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	56

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?

Additional features would be beneficial in the next release of HPE Apollo Systems.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?

We were working with HPE Apollo Systems for one of our projects for the company named VVDN. We were using HPE Apollo Systems, GPU systems and CPU systems. For GPU systems, the model was 6500, in wh...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?

Our company is a platinum partner with HPE, and we continue to deal with HPE. We sell many of their hardware products. Depending on the requirement or deal, we may sell HPE Converged System, hardwa...

See all answers

How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?

For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?

As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?

In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 34% of the time

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 25% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerEdge MX- Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 14% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 3% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Apollo Systems

October 2025

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

October 2025

Download HPE Synergy product report

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo

No data available

Overview

The HPE Apollo high-density server family is built for the highest levels of performance and efficiency. They are rack-scale compute, storage, networking, power and cooling – massively scale-up and scale-out – solutions for your big data analytics, object storage and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. From water-cooling that’s 1,000X more efficient than air, to “right-sized scaling” with 2X the compute density for workgroup and private cloud workloads, the HPE Apollo line is a dense, high-performance, tiered approach for organisations of all sizes.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Weta Digital

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Buyer's Guide

Density Optimized Servers

October 2025

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