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

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 23, 2025

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 ProLiant DL Servers
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
156
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
90
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 ProLiant DL Servers is designed for Rack Servers and holds a mindshare of 21.7%, up 21.8% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 21.3% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.
Rack Servers
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

SHIVAKUMAR A P - PeerSpot reviewer
With an easy setup phase in place, it is suitable for small and large-sized businesses
When you speak of any enhancements in the product, you need to shift to the tool's commercial mode. You get more features in the solution if you pour in more money. If a customer needs some features in the solution, they will have to buy it since certain features are not loaded by default in the server. With entry-level licenses, servers are shipped to customers free of cost. Customers need to pay if they want more and more features in the solution. Every OEM solution in the market, including HPE ProLiant DL, operates similarly. The overall cost of the product needs to be lower, as it is one of the areas of concern in the product.
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The robustness of the design of the server is the most valuable. HP servers are easy to use and user-friendly. The server is not complicated, and it is easy to use ILO systems."
"I am impressed with the tool’s stability."
"HPE ProLiant DL Servers are easy to use and the GUI is rather simple and intuitive. The Americans know how to make things beautiful. Their Japanese counterpart has outdated GUIs. There is a lot of other services and software that HPE provides for the server. The software can connect all the infrastructure to form a unified management or monitoring system."
"HPE's iLO server management software is a handy tool to install and deploy."
"The most valuable features of HPE ProLiant DL Servers are convenience and the interface is good."
"HP ProLiant servers provide redundant solutions for almost everything. You can set up multiple power supplies, with a primary power source and a secondary power supply connected on UPS. If the power goes out in the building, the UPS will supply power to the host at all times. The solution can run on batteries for many hours, depending on your battery and UPS capacity."
"The initial setup was easy."
"The hardware is reliable."
"We've found the scalability to be reasonable if you are ready to invest in it."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the converged network adapters."
"It is helping us sort of bridge a gap that we are having moving off of old legacy systems, like HP-UX systems and trying to move over to x86. So, it is helping fill a hardware gap that a lot of our platforms have needed in the past."
"Being able to connect my 3PAR arrays to the Synergy platform is the most valuable aspect to me."
"The centralized management of HPE Synergy is beneficial because it is easy to manage and administer."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The initial configuration process could be simpler."
"If they could put a SAN storage or resend it in the same product, it would be very helpful and more powerful."
"The installation could be simplified."
"It would be great if HP could use a ProLiant Server to run HP-UX, the Unix build from HPE. Right now, HP-UX cannot run on the ProLiant architecture."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive to be more competitive."
"There are concerns about the HPE team in the Southeast Asia region, suggesting a need for improvements in terms of responsiveness. There have been instances where the response time was slow, causing challenges during urgent situations. Its stability also needs to improve."
"I would like to replace a hard drive that might be saved on the fly, on the server that I'm using currently, but I can't do that. I'm forced to power off my virtual machine, turn off the server, disconnect it from the power, replace the drive, rebuild the storage, and power it on again."
"The documentation for HPE ProLiant DL Servers has room for improvement. For example, it says on the documentation that this specific product or part number is supported. Still, when you ask the HPE team, the reply is that it's not supported, so HPE should update the information on the documentation."
"This solution could be improved by increasing the speed on the conversion adapters. It should be 100 gigs."
"After delivering the contract, they became a little less active. So, it needs some pushing from my side sometimes."
"It has affected the productivity of our development team in a bad way. When we first stood the hardware up 18 months ago, the image streaming capacity and capability were not very good at all. We had hoped that it would allow us to be more composable and be able to switch over from one version of an operating system to another version of an operating system. However, it wasn't ready for prime time yet. Therefore, we had to go back to a deployment of bare metal install. We are still waiting and trying to figure out how we can do the composable infrastructure."
"The initial setup was complex. We had a couple of bright engineers working on it, and they figured out a lot of things that they don't know... The problem was that they couldn't find documentation easily, to walk them through setup when they just didn't know the platform."
"The cost is quite high."
"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."
"One of the issues that we that we have been having is with the firmware baselining. So, we need to just making sure that we get that working. However, we are in the early stages. It may well be that we just tweak a few things."
"It would be nice if the updates were not accompanied by downtime."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"We have ILO licenses. We use this feature."
"HPE ProLiant DL Servers have a higher price than Dell servers. However, the Japanese counterpart has the lowerest priced servers. The price of the HPE ProLiant DL Servers could improve, it could be less expensive."
"The price of HPE ProLiant DL Servers is reasonable, but because of covid and other factors, the price could be reduced. The license is paid annually."
"The price of HPE ProLiant DL Servers is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The pricing of these servers is fair. It is in the mid-range."
"This is an expensive product and there is licensing required for iLO, which is the HPE monitoring system."
"HPE ProLiant DL Servers are one of the best-selling solutions in this industry. There is not a license required for this solution."
"We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan."
"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
"We pay about £500 for the solution."
"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."
"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
"We do CAPEX."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Rack Servers solutions are best for your needs.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How do Lenovo ThinkSystem rack servers compare with HPE ProLiant DL servers?
Lenovo ThinkSystem rack servers offer flexibility and efficiency in order to meet mission-critical demands. I like that Lenovo blends outstanding performance, reliability, and manageability. The bi...
What do you like most about HPE ProLiant DL Servers?
The most valuable feature of the solution is HPE Integrated Lights-Out (iLO)...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE ProLiant DL Servers?
The product is expensive. I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. On the needs of the customers, the product offers a lot of suppor...
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 do you like most about HPE Synergy?
It is a good product for hypervisors.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
Pricing in the blade server market is very competitive, with HPE offering a competitive price. Competitor products include Dell's MX series and Cisco's UCS X series.
 

Also Known As

HP ProLiant DL series, HP ProLiant DL
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AmeriPride Services, iSource, Bolagsverket, BlueShore Financial, British Columbia Assessment Authority, National Stock Exchange, Cardlytics
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and others in Rack Servers. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.