Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
24
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (6th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
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 17.6%, down 24.8% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 15.8% mindshare, down 21.6% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Apollo Systems17.6%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series24.8%
Huawei FusionServer X Series16.9%
Other40.699999999999996%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Synergy15.8%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series13.4%
HPE BladeSystem11.7%
Other59.099999999999994%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MS
Works at Saudi Telecom Company
Manage servers efficiently with an integrated view while reducing downtime
My use case is to serve the complete IT environment of the telecom, including all cloud applications. I use HPE Synergy servers for my private cloud and for network management systems. 70% of my workload is running on HPE servers The integrated view, such as managing complete servers and…

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."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"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."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity."
"The Synergy environment provides us with one view. We're able to manage the entire stack, top to bottom, from that single view."
"Cable management is a big feature, in addition to time to deployment. We can buy a new server and have it up and running very quickly."
"The Online firmware update for the virtual connects has minimized our downtime windows."
"It's a bit easier to manage than the C7000s."
"The product enables the centralization of all administrative tasks."
"Great data storage and very good for software defined solutions."
"Everything is in one place. We have one place to with OneView. It provides one console with one place to get to everything. The one interface makes it easier. We have one guy who does almost everything in it."
"Synergy is much easier to use, which is saving us time. We are able to set the profiles for firmware upgrades. This makes the process for the care and feeding of the IT environment much simpler, quicker, and cleaner."
 

Cons

"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability."
"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 are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"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."
"Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"I'd get the firmware to be a little more secure and a little more streamlined."
"We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end."
"ICMs could be better in this model. When you look at its competitors, the most critical point is the throughput. HPE is the best with the ICM module, which is an interconnect module that connects the servers of the frames to the LAN and SAN. HPE Synergy should also support the latest processors provided by Intel."
"After delivering the contract, they became a little less active. So, it needs some pushing from my side sometimes."
"One of the features I want to see, which I will see with OneView 5.0, is to have all the OneView consoles in a single pane of glass. That will make it easy to see everything in one place and not have to log in to multiple consoles."
"HPE Synergy could improve its remote support."
"Technical support was time consuming and unsatisfactory. The initial product setup was complex, lasing around three weeks to a month."
"They have not improved their product since it was purchased."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
"Nutanix was really hard to implement, and it was very pricey compared to what we get from Synergy."
"The price point is a little high. We were able to get a good deal on a promotion, to go with it. It would be nice to see the prices come down a little bit."
"We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure."
"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"For me, the scalability is how much money that I need to spend on switches for how many frames, which ultimately means servers. To get the best bandwidth before the most recent product announcement, I have buy new switches every three frames. The competition is shipping a product right now where I only need switches every ten frames."
"The cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Density Optimized Servers solutions are best for your needs.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Density Optimized Servers. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.