SmartDeploy Reviews

Summary: If you are looking for a simple out-of-the-box solution that requires minimal training and administration, then Smart Deploy will probably be perfect for you. We opted for it in our Small Enterprise because we needed to implement a solution that was quick to setup and would not take time away from other administrative responsibilities. It also needed to be plug-and-play for the technicians doing the imaging.

Cost: The product is very expensive for the service it offers in my opinion. Sites say "Starts at 15, but that is deceptive. That is a very high volume price. Anyone with that number of computers is a large enterprise that I am sure already has a solution in place. I am sure they also require customizations beyond the Smart Deploy offering. That 15 is also the price minus the "support contract". So it's 15 + 3-4 for ongoing support. But the support isn't just raising tickets with them, it's the driver packs as well, so that means you need to pay for the support. The solution is not customizable enough for large enterprise, and too expensive for small-mid businesses. That give Smart Deploy a strange gray area of usefulness where the organization probably has the knowledge to implement something better or cheaper like MDT, it just doesn't have the manpower. That is where we fell in.

Support: This is the first SaaS solution I have purchased where the contact you purchase dictates the number of tickets you are allowed to raise. the normal contract only allows for 5 tickets per month. As previously mentioned, I needed to perform some customizations to the imaging process which Smart Deploy does not make straight forward. After a production deployment I went back counted 42 different questions/issues I had to ask the pre-sales engineer for assistance on. I was even provided incorrect documentation from them that did not work. That means the standard level of support provided would not have been sufficient for me to implement in my organization.

To recap, if you want to customize the imaging process, then Smart Deploy is not for you. If you need something quickly in place that requires minimal administration, then it is.

Positive: Minimal upkeep, out of the box solution, relatively straight forward GUI, support is responsive, provided driver packs (see cons as well), multiple deployment options (network, offline, over the internet), received a lot of pre-sales assistance to implement a proof of concept.

Negative: Customizations are cumbersome (i.e. running PS and CMD scripts is possible, but the syntax is strange), MDT type xml customizations are not possible, driver packs are out of date, about 2-3 times slower than MDT/DISM, does not auto-generate and store logs on server if imaging is initiated via usb (must script copying the log file back), expensive for the service it offers, limited service tickets per month.

Summary: - We have not been on SmartDeploy long but so far it has delivered on everything we needed it to when it comes to our deployments.
- We are happy and can't wait to see what else they will offer.

Positive: - Easy to learn and use for imaging units.
- Cloud integration allows us to image units in the filed, where we could not before.
- Application Packs are very handy for rolling out software quickly.
- And Platform Packs make sure we have the latest drivers and firmware on a newly imaged unit as well as a unit already deployed.

Negative: - No Single Management console if you have multiple servers as deployment servers (This feature was not available and was disclosed when we purchased).
- Also no sync option for when you update an image to push it to a multiple server deployment setup (Really wish this were an option).
- Custom Application Packs are a little tricky to build (But can be done).
- Not ALL Platform Packs are the latest available drivers and firmware (But for the most part they are).

Summary: Overall pretty happy with how the product worked out. There are a lot of offerings in this field of software and I think SmartDeploy stands out.

Positive: I like how easy it was in general to setup and get working. It drastically reduced the time it took to image over 300 machines in my organization across 10 physical location to windows 10.

Negative: Some of the options don't make sense. One of them being the wipe and load and automatic partitioning schemes. If you have one it deprecates other useful options that are available in the other. Cost is a bit high but given the time to deployment compared to say SCCM it is kind of worth it.

Summary: Smartdeploy helps my company deploy laptops with centralized images. They have an assortment of drivers for all popular makes and brands. HP, DELL, Lenovo, etc.

Get started in as little as 15 minutes and start reimaging machines!

Positive: - Deployments are now easy to manage and deploy through the centralized server
- Cloud storage integration to restore the device through the internet and a boot drive
- Pricing is straight forward and clear. Just pay per device and monthly fee for technical support service
- Automatic Driver Installation

Negative: - Product is mature and driver support is for all popular brands and makes, but obscure laptop brands are not fully supported

Summary: SmartDeploy made Windows 10 image creation and deployment much easier than I expected. I am familiar with tools such as Altiris, WDS, and MDT, and this was by far the easiest experience for creating new images. I recommend building Deployment Packages for use with WDS for seamless network-based deployment.

Positive: -One of the easier Windows imaging platforms to stand up and create and deploy images.
-Built in driver packages for most business PCs
-Simple but versatile. Can deploy images via USB/DVD or cloud storage (like Google Drive), but I use the integrated WDS support.
-Light or (at least mostly) Zero touch. Native support for running scripts during imaging process and the ability to boot to PE and pick an image or automatically apply an image.
-Pricing is straight forward and reasonable
-The native hardware-agnostic image capture works automatically and allows 1 image to be used for many models with very different hardware.

Negative: The workflow is a little different, or worded differently, than other products I've used in the past, which presented a little bit of a learning curve to get going. After reading the documentation I still had to take advantage of support to get SD configured how I expected it to work.

Summary: Overall this is a great product that lets you reduce the hassle when imaging machines by having one image to build and many easy to use driver packs.

Positive: I like the driver packs and the wizard driven menu for creating images. It is fairly easy to use and saves time.

Negative: I am not a fan of the new pricing. They used to let you image as many machines as you want. I already have other software that deploys packages and I am not using the cloud deployment yet.

Summary: We were able to use Smart Deploy as a solid solution in under a few months (side project). So far, each push has saved us a few hours for each push. Overall very satisfied with this as a solution and support has been helpful in getting us what we need.

Positive: After trying to implement MDT (Microsoft Deployment Toolkit), we ran into some issues and not having technical support was difficult for our technicians. Smart Deploy is a better alternative since it includes support, a very self-intuitive interface, and good help documentation/videos.

Negative: I wish that each license would come with unlimited support (and phone support), instead, you have to pay for different levels of support.

Summary: I have used Altiris, Micrsoft SCCM, PDQ, and others to deploy workstations and Smartdeploy is by far the easiest to use. Updating your golden image is easy and not having to update drivers on the main image makes it so much easier managing your images.

Positive: Ease of use
Support team very responsive
Constantly updating
Huge selection of driver packs
Cost effective yet feature rich

Negative: Instructions on website for setup are outdated they do not match the version that is currently released
Took sometime to follow the directions since we had to hunt for the feature they were talking about.

Summary: From start to finish this software has been a really big help in getting our new machines deployed after our previous solution died on us (SCCM). It has saved us countless hours due to all of this. I hope that they make the application deployment more robust and easier to use as it's still more complicated to use than SCCM was.

Positive: Rollout is easy.
Easy to build, capture and deploy an image.
Cheapest paid imaging solution that has this feature set.

Negative: Application deployment still seems to be in its infancy and is more complicated than other solutions.

Summary: Ease of use, great features like driver packs and cloud deploying, and excellent customer service make it unbeatable.

Positive: -Very easy to deploy images across various machines despite hardware differences.
-Extremely easy to set up and use.
-Driver packs are updated with almost all models.
-The cloud deploying option is wonderful.
-1 month trial with all features
-Customer service and Sales teams are very helpful and supportive.

Negative: -The user interface needs an update I guess. It looks a bit old-fashioned.
-Lack of proper documentation.
-Deploying your Anti Virus through your golden image is a little bit challenging.

Summary: Simple yet powerful program that will cut down setup times substantially. Great support team and lots of resources for getting started.

Positive: Setup process was very easy and quick.
Their site has tons of documentation and videos on how to get the product setup.
Smart deploy cut down our imaging and setup times to a fifth of what it was before.

Combined with WDS our imaging process from start to finish takes 15 minutes.

Negative: Wish there was a way for multiple admins to be signed into SD at once on the same server.

Summary: This is the best imaging solution I have used. Deployment is simple and can be used with Windows Deployment System.

Positive: Driver packs make deployment easy.
Single gold image is all that is needed.
Easy to customize answer file.
Easy to create application packs.

Negative: Nothing really.
Would like more available pre-packaged apps.

Summary: Solved a long problem of trying to image using old software, or even handloading! Would/have recommend to fellow industry contacts. A++++

Positive: • Quick Golden Image Setup
• Easy to Deploy local or Remote
• No more manual Sysprep
• Mgmt. of all machines in once location
• Driver Packs deploy with EASE!!!!

Negative: • More Built in Application Packs
• No Cloud Mgmt. Tool (Hopeful in coming releases)

Summary: Good overall experience.
Really fast distribution of Windows via our gold master image
to different models.

Positive: Easy to use software solution.
Platform packs for each hardware we use available.
Easy adjusting of answerfile so we can roll out different locations with one image.
Excellent team and support.

Negative: On downside is that for a really practical use i needs to be on a physical server otherwise you have to transfer the VM files to the virt Server to capture the image.

Summary: SmartDeploy has certainly helped with business needs and management and their support is always helpful and responsive.

Positive: Incredibly easy to use and configure, barely any setup time, along with useful features which are massive time savers.

Negative: One of the only cons is driver platform packs not always applying, but this is generally fixed with an update to the pack. Can also always make your own.