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 18.0% mindshare in the category. HPE Synergy is ranked #3 in Blade Servers , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 12.7% 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 24 HPE Apollo Systems reviews

1,962 Views
235 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 91 HPE Synergy reviews

3,502 Views
2,276 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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Density Optimized Servers

January 2026

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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

5.5

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 (3rd), 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 18.0%, down 23.7% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 12.7% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.

Density Optimized Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Apollo Systems	18.0%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series	24.1%
Huawei FusionServer X Series	17.2%
Other	40.7%

Density Optimized Servers

Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Synergy	12.7%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series	12.1%
HPE BladeSystem	9.9%
Other	65.30000000000001%

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Gökhan DURMAZ

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.

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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

"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable. It is quite effective for the work for which we are using it. We are mainly running video servers on these, and we are quite happy with the resilience, density storage, and streaming capacity of the system."

"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 pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."

"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."

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

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

"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"

"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."

More HPE Apollo Systems pros

"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."

"The most valuable feature is its composable infrastructure. Everything I need is in the box. Manageability is through OneView, so I can get all the information about the box itself at any time I want."

"It's a bit easier to manage than the C7000s."

"In terms of the productivity of our deployment team, the amount of time has been decreased a lot. In the past, to deploy one c7000 chassis with 15 or 16 blades, we literally used to spend two to three weeks. But with a Synergy, it's very quick. Within three days we can do the deployment."

"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 build out a whole stack at one time, so we don't have to worry about it until that stack is full, then that gives us time to get the next one ready."

"I believe, compared to the C7000, it delivers a significant amount of innovation and flexibility,"

"In terms of managing our IT landscape, it helps by reducing complexity... We've taken one of our virtualization guys and turned him into a Synergy guy, and he's been able to understand the networking, he's been able to understand the OneView, he's been able to understand the Synergy. He manages all of those rather than our having to have multiple teams associated with it."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

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

"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."

"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."

"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."

"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."

"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."

"Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall."

"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."

More HPE Apollo Systems cons

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

"The expansion was complex, because adding a second frame onto the original frame caused an outage."

"I'd like to see the firmware updates, as well as the built-in OneView and imager in Composer, become a little more powerful and faster."

"The Synergy platform is HPE-specific and more for on-premises. You're kind of locked in with VMware and the HPE with the VMs. The Nutanix offering is a bit more flexible."

"Changes to the solution are quite complex."

"One of the things that I would like to see, and could be in their road map, is getting virtual connect to 100 Gig throughput."

"Technical support was time consuming and unsatisfactory. The initial product setup was complex, lasing around three weeks to a month."

"The profiles aren't so easy to work with."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"There is a perpetual license given when you purchase HPE Synergy."

"The solution can be expensive because it requires both hardware and software purchases."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."

"We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan."

"We are satisfied with its price."

"Our IT infrastructure costs have gone up each year by 20 percent."

"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 licensing is more around the software for RGS, because we are deploying bare metal installs. It is mainly the operating system and any lights-out management. So, licensing is minimum. We are licensing it annually."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

University

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	13

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	56

Questions from the Community

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...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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...

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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 22% of the time

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Power Systems vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 6% of the time

Lenovo High-Density Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 20% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerEdge MX- Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Apollo Systems

February 2026

Download HPE Apollo Systems product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

February 2026

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

January 2026

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