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HPE Apollo Systems vs IBM Power Systems comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM are both solutions in the Rack Servers category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.3. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 3.9% mindshare in Rack Servers, compared to IBM’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of IBM users who would recommend it.
HPE Apollo Systems
Read 24 HPE Apollo Systems reviews
  • 1,962 Views
  • 1,707 Comparison Views
96% willing to recommend
IBM Power Systems
Read 73 IBM Power Systems reviews
  • 3,714 Views
  • 3,714 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
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HPE Apollo Systems and IBM Power Systems compete in the high-performance computing market. IBM Power Systems appear to have the upper hand due to their advanced features that users feel justify the investment.

Features: HPE Apollo Systems are known for scalability, energy efficiency, and flexibility. IBM Power Systems are recognized for high processing power, reliability, and robust security features.

Room for Improvement: HPE Apollo Systems users suggest improvements in integration, software tools, and compatibility with existing systems. IBM Power Systems users desire lower costs, more accessible maintenance procedures, and improved affordability without losing performance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Apollo Systems are straightforward to deploy with comprehensive support. IBM Power Systems, despite more complex deployment, offer responsive technical support. HPE excels in faster initial deployment, while IBM provides detailed guidance for complex setups.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Apollo Systems have competitive setup costs and flexible pricing, offering favorable ROI aligned with budget-conscious decisions. IBM Power Systems, with higher upfront costs, promise long-term value and substantial returns, appealing to those prioritizing lasting investment.

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To learn more, read our detailed HPE Apollo Systems vs. IBM Power Systems Report (Updated: February 2026).
Buyer's Guide
HPE Apollo Systems vs. IBM Power Systems
February 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
Ranking in Rack Servers
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
IBM Power Systems
Ranking in Rack Servers
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Apollo Systems is 3.9%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Power Systems is 7.2%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rack Servers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Power Systems7.2%
HPE Apollo Systems3.9%
Other88.9%
Rack Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Gökhan DURMAZ - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Read full review
Foluso Jibowo - PeerSpot reviewer
Foluso Jibowo
Product Manager at Hiperdist Ltd
Has empowered enterprises with secure and cost-effective solutions
When discussing disadvantages, I do not see many areas for improvement because we have received good testimonies from every client. IBM gives customers peace of mind. One challenge, which I would not really call a challenge, is that initially people have the notion that IBM Power Systems is quite expensive. However, IBM does not lose deals based on price. This is a message we need to keep communicating to people who feel that IBM is on the high side in terms of cost. We encourage them to have a discussion with us about their total cost of ownership over three or five years. There is a notion in the market that IBM is expensive, which is false. However, once we engage and show them their return on investments and their total cost of ownership savings, they tend to embrace IBM.
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."
"HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity."
"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."
"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
More HPE Apollo Systems pros
"IBM Power Systems provides very good performance and stability compared to other brands or processors."
"Some of the most valuable features are the processing power, stability, and security."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Power Systems is its performance."
"When it comes to reliability, availability and profitability, nothing can beat IBM Power Systems."
"It scales a lot, you can just keep on adding frames, you can add on CPUs, you get capacity on demand, you can tune the machine very easily to handle different workloads."
"I use the hypervisor of IBM Power Systems a lot."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"Active Memory Expansion allows you to compress your memory on the run time to allow you to have less physical memory available, but provision more memory to your partitions, as everything will be compressed on the fly."
More IBM Power Systems pros
 

Cons

"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
More HPE Apollo Systems cons
"Unfortunately, the hardware models and all those things have gone down a little bit, and there's no such diversity of models, and again, IBM is getting more and more expensive."
"I think IBM needs a little more work on managing the overall environment with eliminating Systems Director."
"It does not offer the ability to run any X86 or X64 Intel architecture-based application on Power Systems. There are a lot of applications, lots of business use cases that do not support this architecture as of now. If somehow application tasks can be ported on to IBM Power Systems, that would be a big improvement."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Better manage heterogeneous footprints of all the different operating systems that are out there across one common interface."
"The scalability process should be simplified."
"One of the features that we would like, and I think they are also adapting to the latest trends in the market, is to make it more open, more flexible... With VMware, anybody can create a virtual machine without any knowledge of the server side. But with AIX it's a bit difficult."
"Everyone likes speed. Not that speed has been an issue up until now but you can never be too fast."
More IBM Power Systems cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"Power Systems is a bit more costly than other products in the market, but in terms of ROI and the longevity, performance, and reliability that Power Systems provides, it's worth it in the long run."
"The additional software costs are high."
"Why should I be charged for that use rather than a single CPU, a single socket?"
"Its price depends on the sizing."
"Price-wise, I rate the solution a five out of ten."
"The machine is good and has a comparatively good price."
"The cost model is great. There is so much built in to the technology, that if you know how to use it you can save yourself a lot of money."
"The licensing costs are okay. With IBM Power Systems, it's inclusive, so you can differentiate the price of the hardware from the software itself."
More IBM Power Systems pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
 

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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise42
 

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...
See all answers
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 ...
See all answers
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 ...
See all answers
What needs improvement with IBM Power Systems?
In my opinion, the product can be improved by maintaining it and not sunsetting it; that would be my recommendation for IBM. I used to work for IBM for nineteen years, and I know, unfortunately, I ...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for IBM Power Systems?
I am an architect and system administrator, and I'm responsible for anything related to IBM Power Systems. In IBM Power Systems, I have found a lot of valuable features such as LVM, TCP, ODM, RSCT,...
See all answers
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Power Systems?
I would recommend IBM Power Systems to others. I have given this review a rating of ten out of ten.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 22% of the time
Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 14% of the time
HPE Synergy vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
HPE Synergy vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 7% of the time
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 7% of the time
Lenovo High-Density Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems Logo
Lenovo High-Density Servers vs HPE Apollo Systems
Compared 5% of the time
More HPE Apollo Systems Competitors
Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs IBM Power Systems Logo
Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs IBM Power Systems
Compared 25% of the time
Intel Server System vs IBM Power Systems Logo
Intel Server System vs IBM Power Systems
Compared 22% of the time
HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs IBM Power Systems Logo
HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs IBM Power Systems
Compared 17% of the time
Oracle SPARC Servers vs IBM Power Systems Logo
Oracle SPARC Servers vs IBM Power Systems
Compared 15% of the time
Huawei KunLun Mission Critical Server vs IBM Power Systems Logo
Huawei KunLun Mission Critical Server vs IBM Power Systems
Compared 3% of the time
More IBM Power Systems Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
HPE Apollo Systems
February 2026
HPE Apollo Systems reportDownload HPE Apollo Systems product report
Buyer's Guide
IBM Power Systems
February 2026
IBM Power Systems reportDownload IBM Power Systems product report
 

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
IBM OpenPOWER LC
 

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
IBM Power Systems are built to crush the most advanced data applications - from the mission-critical workloads you run today to the next generation of AI.
IBM
 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
Cipher
Buyer's Guide
HPE Apollo Systems vs. IBM Power Systems
February 2026
Free Report: HPE Apollo Systems vs. IBM Power Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Apollo Systems vs. IBM Power Systems and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
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