--- title: SmartDeploy Reviews meta_title: 'SmartDeploy Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 152 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how SmartDeploy works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 152 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-07' parent_category: name: IT Management url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-management --- # SmartDeploy Reviews **Vendor:** PDQ.com **Category:** [OS Imaging & Deployment Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/os-imaging-deployment) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 152 ## About SmartDeploy SmartDeploy is a Windows imaging and OS deployment solution that helps IT administrators and sysadmins provision, reimage, and manage Windows endpoints across on-premises, remote, and hybrid environments. Designed for IT teams managing fleets of 50 to 10,000 Windows devices, SmartDeploy simplifies the imaging and deployment cycle from image creation and driver management to bare-metal provisioning and user data migration without the complexity of other legacy tools. Common use cases include: OS reimaging after hardware refresh, bare-metal provisioning of new endpoints, image deployment across mixed-hardware environments, user data and settings migration during device replacement, and OS standardization for compliance-sensitive fleets. SmartDeploy supports both agentless and agent-based deployment modes. In agentless environments, deployments are supported through offline media or WDS/PXE boot. With the SmartDeploy client installed, IT teams can deploy Windows images over the network or directly from cloud storage in addition to offline media. Key capabilities: Hardware-independent imaging with automated driver injection: Create a single WIM-based Windows image and deploy it across different hardware models. Driver injection technology automatically matches and delivers the correct driver pack to each target device, drawing from a library of 1,500+ prebuilt, PDQ-maintained driver packs covering all major OEM business-class models. Flexible deployment methods: Deploy Windows images using offline media, local network servers, WDS/PXE boot, or directly from cloud storage (OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, or S3) without requiring a VPN for remote endpoints. Multi-admin web console with distribution points: A locally hosted web console enables multiple IT administrators to access SmartDeploy concurrently from any networked device. Distribution points allow teams to store deployment assets at local offices or in cloud storage and deploy from the nearest available source. Native USMT integration: Built-in support for the User State Migration Tool (USMT) allows admins to capture and restore user data and settings as part of a standard deployment workflow. Quick setup and ease of use: SmartDeploy delivers comparable Windows imaging and OS deployment capabilities with faster setup, lower administrative overhead, and greater deployment flexibility — designed for teams that don't need full-scale enterprise deployment infrastructure. PDQ is a software company founded in 2001 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Built by sysadmins for sysadmins, PDQ develops device management and deployment tools for IT teams. SmartDeploy is PDQ's Windows imaging and OS deployment product, used by IT teams across government, education, healthcare, and compliance-sensitive industries where consistent, auditable Windows provisioning is critical. ## SmartDeploy Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users find SmartDeploy's **ease of use** invaluable, streamlining image creation and deployment processes effortlessly. (6 reviews) - Users find **SmartDeploy's easy deployment** facilitates efficient imaging and management of multiple computer labs. (4 reviews) - Users value the **navigation ease** of SmartDeploy, finding it straightforward and intuitive for managing deployment tasks. (4 reviews) - Users praise the **easy installation** of SmartDeploy, appreciating its intuitive interface and quick setup process. (3 reviews) - Users praise the **great customer support** of SmartDeploy, which enhances the overall ease of management and deployment. (2 reviews) - Users find **SmartDeploy's setup process incredibly easy** , enabling efficient imaging and deployment without extensive experience. (2 reviews) - Intuitive (2 reviews) - Users praise the **simple imaging process** of SmartDeploy, making device management easy and efficient. (2 reviews) - Users commend SmartDeploy for its **impressive cloud integration** , significantly enhancing deployment efficiency and simplifying imaging processes. (2 reviews) - Centralized Management (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users feel frustrated by the **licensing issues** with SmartDeploy, complicating usage and increasing costs unnecessarily. (2 reviews) - Users regret the **missing features** in SmartDeploy, leading to inefficiencies, high costs, and lack of updates. (2 reviews) - Users find the **initial setup complex** , noting time consumption and challenges with image sizes and updates. (2 reviews) - Users experience **slow performance** during setup and heavy usage, which impacts efficiency and overall satisfaction. (2 reviews) - Users are concerned about the **increasing licensing costs** and infrequent updates for Driver Packs in SmartDeploy. (1 reviews) - Integration Issues (1 reviews) - Users find SmartDeploy has **limited features** for managing large amounts of machines and updating drivers effectively. (1 reviews) - Mac Support (1 reviews) - Users find SmartDeploy's **application management clumsiness** and update processes frustrating, suggesting room for improvement. (1 reviews) - Pricing Issues (1 reviews) ## SmartDeploy Reviews ### 1. Deploy Smartly **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kenneth S. | IT Service Center Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 04, 2022 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Easy to use interface and overlay that doesnt require alot of expierence or scripting knowledge like other legacy image deployment toolkits such as WDS and/or MDT. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Driver Repository may not have exactly what you need depending on make and model so you have to pay additional costs to get uploaded vs being able to manage and upload yourself. **Recommendations to others considering SmartDeploy:** great value add to those who are using legacy products that need to improve upon the efficiencies of imaging and deploying as well as other patching adn end point management. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** The driver repository management is an added value. The ability to leverage less expeirence technicians to manage and deploy images is of value as well. Easier task sequnecing. ### 2. My Review of SmartDeploy **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rita G. | Vulnerability specialist, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 17, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** SmartDeploy helps our organization save time managing and deploying operating systems. It’s very easy to use. The tool helps us with updates and installations which has saved us a lot of time. One of the best features is using an image for all of our devices. The tools is very user-friendly. Reporting features are very helpful. Smartdeploy has been very reliable and fulfilled some of our needs. Also, the customer support teams is amazing. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** That the initial implementation can be a bit slow. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** It makes managing and deploying operating systems much easier. Before, we had to manually update or install software. Now, with SmartDeploy we can deploy updates remotely saving a lot of time. ### 3. My Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anthony Wilkin H. | Técnico de Programación , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 17, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** What i like about smartdeploy, first of all, it's easy to deploy on multiple computers and that I can create images quickly. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** What I don't like is that it is only compatible with Windows and that it should have a more reduced price for small businesses. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has some benefits that are good, it helps with the deployment and is very fast, a good image creation function, this helps me save time. ### 4. I a pretty solid option for Imaging and Computer Management **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David T. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** It's pretty robust with lost of features and great reporting. I like the amount of control I have over computers, the amount of reporting that I can get to give me the information I need, and offered at a pretty acceptable price point. So far, my customer service experience has been fantastic, overall. They're usually quick, happy to help and, most importantly, effeciant and helpful. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** It's overly complicated to make minor changes to images and it doesn't come with its own PXE boot solution. (I had to use WDS). Not a huge deal though. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Replaced an outdated and failing computer management and imaging solution we had on site. The computer management solution is significantly more efficient than any I've used in the past. ### 5. Small Business Deployment **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nicole C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 06, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** We've been using SmartDeploy within our small business (about 95 employees) for the past year. It definitely does what we need it to. Overall, it is fairly simple to use and that is definitely a plus when it comes to imaging. Also, we already used PDQ Inventory and PDQ Deploy, so it's great to have another application from the same developer. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** As mentioned, SmartDeploy does what we need it to. However, there are a few pain points: - If we uninstall SmartDeploy from a computer and then try to reinstall it later, we have a lot of issues with it populating again under Computer Management in the console. - It would be nice to be able to capture images from a network or drive that is not local. - It is hard to tell sometimes whether or not the deployment is finished or is actively doing anything. I think maybe it would be helpful if there was some kind of notification on the imaged device as to when the deployment was complete. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Prior to SmartDeploy, we did not have a solid imaging / deployment process. SmartDeploy has allowed us to come up with a more concrete plan to accomplish this. **Official Response from Keaton Wagner:** > Thanks for the thoughtful review, Nicole! This is really solid feedback that I'm passing along to our product team. ### 6. SmartDeploy Easy to Use Computer Deployment **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Angel D. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 06, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Overall, SmartDeploy has made our lives easier by streamlining our deployment processes. It's user-friendly and backed by great support, making it an essential tool for any organization looking to simplify computer deployments. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** The initial setup process can be challenging, and clearer documentation would be beneficial. While the software is user-friendly once you get the hang of it, a smoother onboarding experience would enhance its usability further. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Once we've set it up initially, it's a "set it and forget it" solution, requiring little ongoing attention until it's time for another deployment. Making changes is a breeze with SmartDeploy's straightforward interface, ensuring our deployment strategies stay up-to-date without causing headaches. ### 7. Image PCs in a flash! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Angel D. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** How easy it is to create your golden image and deploy to multiple PCs. I love that I have it integrated with WDS. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** The patch management, I think they're other companies who manage it better, sometimes it doesn't hurt to see how the other guy does it and replicate what they do. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Imaging multiple PCs within minutes, and deploying those PCs to the users. ### 8. Decent software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jacob R. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 06, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** It is easy to use. Easy to implement. Integration to our environment was easy and straightforward. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** It could use more features and a lower price point. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows mass enterprise depolyment with imaging. It saves time and costs associated with fleet deployments. ### 9. Impressive features and ease of image deployment **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Oil & Energy | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 06, 2024 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** The ability to deploy a single base image easily, cost effective and easy to manage **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** A smartdeploy forum would be good, similar to the pdq forums **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ability to have a base gold image that is easy to deploy and quickly ### 10. SD: A great imaging & management solution! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Philip T. | IT Support Specialist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 12, 2021 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Extremely helpful support, custom platform packs, overall great solution that as helped our small business succeed with imaging our fleet of workstations. Platform Packs are freaking great and they have packs for a ton of brands & models. If they don't have a PP for your workstation, they can create custom packs. Depending on your support level, that may be free or cost a very small amount. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Struggling to come up with solid answer here, but one area that has room for improvement is their self-help. KB articles, FAQ, etc. aren't very deep or cover a large enough area of subjects. I think they could use more there. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** SmartDeploy helps us easily provide standard golden images to our company's fleet of ~250 workstations. I can't imagine doing all of them by hand. ### 11. Great Imaging Product, Management Needs Work **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mental Health Care | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2020 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Very high quality imaging product. It allows us to maintain a single Windows 10 Enterprise Image, and then lay that on multiple hardware platforms and configurations. When a new model comes out, we can just download the platform pack from SmartDeploy and we are ready to go. LAN and Offline deployment work best, by far. We have made WAN Deployment work in some cases. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** The management and migration pieces need work. User migration capture and deployment from the Console is hit and miss at best. It mostly just doesn't work, and has caused us to lose at least one user's data. WAN deployment is also hampered when there is limited bandwidth. **Recommendations to others considering SmartDeploy:** Test SmartDeploy first to make sure it does exactly what you need and want. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** To enable fast roll-out of new laptops and PCs To assist us in upgrading in-place hardware from Windows 7 to Windows 10, this is by far the best use case for us and has generally worked superbly. ### 12. SmartDeploy **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2021 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Ability to prep notebooks for new users quickly **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Bogs down the network when you attempt to image several systems simultaneously **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Eliminates time consuming manual setup of company computers. Images are complete and standardized. ### 13. Fantastic tool **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jeremy T. | IT Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 27, 2020 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** There are many different options for setup and deploying, it has a vast array for various different user setups. You can configure to deploy the OS and configurations, as well as user apps and profiles. It makes for a very easy and hands off deployment for many more machines at a time. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Takes time for users to really learn and start using to a beneficial extent. Fairly complex. but that is to be expected. You can look at videos and forums to learn more about it to really implement it to your needs. There is a lot to learn and it can take a lot of time, but it is worth doing to make it as powerful and effective for your organization as possible. **Recommendations to others considering SmartDeploy:** Take the time to learn the software. It can be a lot to look through, but there are a lot of features and things worth implementing. Through their support site as well as online forums and videos, you can look through and find information to help you implement it to the fullest extent. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Decreases the number of unique workstations and greatly increases the speed of deploying hardware. Where an attended installation may take 20+ minutes, a properly configured deployment setup can be used to deploy OS/apps/settings all at the same time on various different machines. ### 14. Great for remote imaging **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Defense & Space | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 27, 2020 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Easy to use, feature packed. Makes imaging less stressful. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Upgrading versions, having to rebuild the entire image deployment. **Recommendations to others considering SmartDeploy:** Give it a try! **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Remote imaging. Not having to ship laptops back and fourth. ### 15. A Good Imaging Solution **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 08, 2019 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** The product is so simple to use. It allows for network, Cloud, and USB imaging. The fact that well-known models driver packages are easily found with the driver package and creation of driver packages are easy makes this product better than the others. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Like every product, there are drawbacks and SmartDeploy is NOT without its faults. There are times in which deployments that should join the network does not join the network for some reason and using the same answer file without making edits allow another deployment to join the network. I was still trying to troubleshoot on my own what causes one deployment to join the network while another does not. Additionally, there seems to be no way to make computer named in sequence instead they are given random names (such as inputting format of ComputerXX which label 3 computers as Computer12, Computer84, Computer 46 instead of Computer11, Computer12, Computer13). **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** SmartDeploy removes the need for manual imaging. ### 16. Smart Deploy **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steven M. | Help Desk Support Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 01, 2019 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Makes my process for imaging computers very fast. The platform packs are a great help. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** Need more application packs or documentation on how a customer can create their own application packs. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Able to deploy computers in 1/2 the time. ### 17. Simplified our Imaging Process **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joel B. | Systems Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** The simplicity to which we can roll out new computers as well as how easy it is to build a new image. Easier to train new Engineers on how to use the software as well. So this allows us to get up and running faster than before. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** The only issues I have really had with the software, support has quickly fixed so cannot really say there is anything I dislike that this time. Their are some features that we would like to see, but according to their path, those will be rolled out in the next year or so. Which will make things even easier for our company in the upcoming months **Recommendations to others considering SmartDeploy:** I believe if you give it an opportunity you will switch, very great software. Easy to use and simple to train new engineers on its use. Even had past colleagues go work for new companies and recommend it at their new companies. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Essentially when we purchase a new computer for a new user, we image the computer with our custom image. So SmartDeploy is solving that problem for us, in a very efficient way. It has decreased the time it takes for that by at least 50%. Which allows our engineers to spend more time focusing on the issues rather than worrying about setting up new computers. ### 18. Great Solution for a Unique Problem **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Medical Devices | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** SmartDeploy allows our team to quickly deploy OS images to target computers. This software makes PXE deployment very simple by automating driver installation. Virtual machines can be quickly captured into an image file, then a boot image can be made with modified tasks in the answer file. PXE deployment can be set to unattended which allows for less monitoring. SmartDeploy regularly releases new versions with feature and stability improvements. Support is able to address issues in a timely manner. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** When we update PC models, we often have to pay an additional fees to have a driver pack created. Considering the amount we spend (1000+ licenses a year) on a "per deployment" plan, we are limited to basic support. This limits support for our company to emails only. Initially, when using a WDS server, it is somewhat unclear which tasks need to be done through the SmartDeploy console. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a medical device company, we set up computers to include with each system. Due to Windows 10 being so long to set up manually, we needed to find a solution to deploy pre-configured Windows settings before installing our IP. Specifically, we needed to limit windows versions to tested builds, remove bloatware, and install certain programs during deployment. This was especially useful for pre-loading Microsoft Office, as it resulted in less bandwidth usage and minimal "hands-on" time. By using SmartDeploy, we've lowered our order turnaround time, improved quality control, and saved money on hiring additional computer technicians. ### 19. So far so good **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about SmartDeploy?** Using it to create and deploy images for new and recycled laptops. I like that you can download platform packs. **What do you dislike about SmartDeploy?** I wish user state migration was more simple or integrated into this product, that would save me tons of time. **What problems is SmartDeploy solving and how is that benefiting you?** Keeping an updated image, deploying new machines easier. ## SmartDeploy Discussions - [I have troubles with trying to use the capture images from machines so I keep a backup image of some machines.](https://www.g2.com/discussions/37341-i-have-troubles-with-trying-to-use-the-capture-images-from-machines-so-i-keep-a-backup-image-of-some-machines) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View SmartDeploy pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/smartdeploy/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=4§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-09+22%3A20%3A02+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=ab86e2f1-943f-440a-8640-02286e91af4b&secure%5Btoken%5D=e8e1002ac26dc0f3bed3e6051bda7f15e16034b36ce7abe8992800647a64d4da&format=llm_user) ## SmartDeploy Features **Additional Functionality** - Alerts/Notifications - Patch Prioritization - Status Tracking - Audit Management - Network Wide Management - Remote Access/Control - Remote Monitoring & Management - Vulnerability Scanning - Activity Tracking - Policy Management - Remote Update/Installation - IT Asset Tracking - Approval Process Control - Automatic Patch Deployment - Access Controls/Permissions - Customization - Dashboard - Patch Testing - Support Ticket Management - Automatic Scans - Active Directory Integration - Compliance Management - Application Management - API - Risk Assessment - Scheduling - Reporting & Statistics - Maintenance Scheduling - Generative AI - Real-Time Updates - Usage Tracking/Analytics - AI Copilot - Patch Management - Third-Party Integrations - Server Monitoring - Real-Time Reporting - Event Logs - Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management **Additional Functionality** - Search/Filter - Risk Management - Generative AI - Alerts/Notifications - Compliance Management - Third-Party Integrations - Certificate Assessment - API - Incident Management - Automated Containment - Real-Time Data - Vulnerability Scanning - Monitoring - Policy Management - Asset Discovery - Penetration Testing - Runtime Container Security - Activity Dashboard - Security Auditing - Issue Tracking - Threat Intelligence - Patch Management - Endpoint Management - Collaboration Tools - Vulnerability Management - Goal Setting/Tracking - Vulnerability Assessment - Asset Tagging - Assessment Management - Access Controls/Permissions - AI Copilot - Vulnerability/Threat Prioritization - Vulnerability Protection - Risk Assessment - Reporting/Analytics - SQL Injections **Administration** - Compression - Automation - Web Interface - Administration Console **Generative AI** - AI Text Summarization **System Control** - Device Control - Web Control - Application Control - Asset Management - System Isolation **Deployment** - Device Variety - OS Variety - Deployment Methods **Vulnerability Prevention** - Endpoint Intelligence - Firewall - Malware Detection **Imaging** - Remote Imaging - Offline imaging - Online imaging **Security Management** - Incident Reports - Security Validation - Compliance ## Top SmartDeploy Alternatives - [NinjaOne](https://www.g2.com/products/ninjaone/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (4,952 reviews) - [ManageEngine Endpoint Central](https://www.g2.com/products/manageengine-endpoint-central/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,118 reviews) - [Ivanti Endpoint Manager](https://www.g2.com/products/ivanti-endpoint-manager/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (138 reviews)