HP-UX

At a glance

• Editor score
  7.9 / 10
• Pricing
  Paid
• Best for
  Organizations maintaining legacy HP enterprise servers
• Facts checked
  23 Sep 2026

• Where it wins

  • Offers BOE, VSE-OE, HA-OE and DC-OE operating environments
  • Update-UX supports software selection and depot-based update sources
  • Supports virtual partitions and Integrity Virtual Machines

• Where it doesn't

  • 11i v3 standard support for Integrity ended December 31, 2025
  • 11i v3 updates from 2021 onward are for Integrity servers only
  • Mature support is without sustaining engineering

Our verdict on HP-UX

HP-UX is Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Unix operating system for enterprise server workloads on HP 9000 and HPE Integrity systems. It is aimed at organizations maintaining those existing server estates, rather than teams choosing a broadly deployable platform for new infrastructure. The available operating environment choices include BOE, VSE-OE, HA-OE and DC-OE. The supported hardware depends on version: HP 9000 uses PA-RISC, while Integrity uses Intel Itanium, and 11i v3 updates from 2021 onward are for Integrity servers only.

Update-UX guides operating-environment and software selection during updates. Administrators can select or deselect optional bundles and register software depots as update sources. The documented 11i v3 distribution includes Veritas File System. For deployments that need partitioning or virtualization within the Integrity environment, HP-UX supports virtual partitions (vPars) and Integrity Virtual Machines. These capabilities make the operating system most relevant where existing workloads, software bundles and server infrastructure already depend on HP-UX; they do not make it a general-purpose choice across server architectures.

Lifecycle status is the key trade-off for buyers. HPE ended standard support for 11i v3 on Integrity servers on December 31, 2025, and for HP 9000 on March 31, 2021. Mature support without sustaining engineering is offered through at least December 31, 2028 for both. HPE also ended 11i v3 license sales on October 31, 2025. Organizations with a need to maintain existing HP-UX systems may have reason to remain on the platform, but buyers planning a new server estate or requiring standard support and sustaining engineering should consider alternatives.

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HP-UX pricing

HP-UX fact sheet

Alternatives to HP-UX

• Ubuntu ServerFree, multi-architecture Linux with five years of LTS maintenance and optional Pro services.9.4
• DebianA stable, broadly compatible server OS with APT, security updates and cloud images.9.3
• AlmaLinux OSA free RHEL-compatible Linux distribution for servers, cloud, containers and more.9.2

See all HP-UX alternatives →

Featured on iTechGuides

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Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

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Last updated 7 Oct 2026 · How we research and update