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HPE Synergy vs Lenovo Flex System comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 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 Synergy
Ranking in Blade Servers
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
Lenovo Flex System
Ranking in Blade Servers
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Synergy is 20.6%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo Flex System is 3.2%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Syed  Ibrahim - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a high initial ceiling before upscaling is required, user-friendly and rich in resources, but has occasional stability issues
The solution should come with cloud native applications to prepare for cloud based solutions. Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem. The level of customer support needs to be improved. There is currently an issue with Lenovo switching out SAN switches from the chassis, which will cause problems for people who already have a set up with the SAN switch connected to the central storage. This could require an entirely different network, adding an additional cost for the user.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has improved our procurement and day zero provisioning. We are bringing in racks of Synergy which are not populated with the blades, then we are buying the blades and populating them, as our business needs. This has been pretty helpful to be able to sort of pre-package the data center with the Synergy platform, then deploy servers into it as we grow."
"The solution's greatest strengths lie in its ability to maintain a high availability and combine networking with hyper channel connectivity into a single component."
"Everything is combined in one chassis, you have storage, compute, networking. So you save a lot of space in the datacenter."
"The benefit is that it's going to be maintained, contrary to what we had last year, when the maintenance went off for the last generation of the servers that we had there."
"The composable feature is amazing as it helps avoid downtimes."
"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 i3S module can be configured to provision storage to all blade servers and boot to any operating system without needing local hard drives."
"The initial setup is straightforward. The infrastructures as code enables you to fill out the configuration before you even deploy it, then it is just a one-touch deployment."
"The product is very user-friendly and has many resources at the enterprise level."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is its ease of use."
"The stability and speed are always good. The processor is good and it's still working with our loads."
"The Lenovo Flex System is very stable."
"The functionality is reliable and requires minimal support."
"It comes at a good price. We didn't face any problems with this product."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability."
 

Cons

"HPE Synergy could improve its remote support."
"We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end."
"The main challenge we faced was that when it was installed it just did not work. There were faulty components and it took weeks of troubleshooting to find the faulty components, get them replaced. Getting help from HPE was difficult. Nobody knew about the product. It was a brand-new product and people had not been trained on it. That part was not a great experience."
"The setup was a bit complex."
"The pricing can be improved as it is a costly solution due to sanctions in Iran."
"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."
"The deployment time of a system through OneView is pretty slow, but apparently that's being addressed in an upcoming update."
"In the past, I have had issues with configurations."
"Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration with other platforms."
"Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved."
"Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo."
"It does not have the same module flexibility that was present in IBM Blade. On the Blade System, I was able to choose between the Cisco module, or BMC module. Since the switch to Lenovo, I have not had the same choice of modules, only the BMC modules."
"The product could improve its integration capabilities."
"The user-interface needs improvement, because they have an application from which we have to manage the whole system and all the infrastructure. This application is not working at our premises, because of some problem with the hardware itself. So although we brought it with our systems, and we used it to manage all the systems: the storage, the switches, and everything, nevertheless we have to support every part alone and enter the interface in one-by-one."
"I had some difficulties with the initial setup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our IT infrastructure costs have gone up each year by 20 percent."
"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 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."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
"The hardware licensing cost is reasonable."
"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 biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
"We do CAPEX."
"There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."
"We are just paying the operational cost, which is not much."
"The 14 blade server allows significant room for upscaling before having to invest in another chassis. You would have to purchase another chassis much sooner in the case of an eight or nine blade server."
"The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."
"The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier."
"We have the whole maintenance for the 3 years, starting the deployment. We also have the VMware license for 3 years and I think we have another license to buy. There are no additional costs besides licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
16%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo Flex System?
Compared to its quality, the pricing is very reasonable and represents good value.
What needs improvement with Lenovo Flex System?
Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo.
What is your primary use case for Lenovo Flex System?
We are using Lenovo Flex System on the server for our VMware environment, which includes our VMs and all our servers, Linux and Windows. It manages the daily operation efficiently.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Flex System Blade Servers, Flex System SN Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.