PDQ Deploy & Inventory Reviews

A easy to use and reliable solution for small and mid sized companies

Comments: When we started to use this software, we did not have a solution to inventory and deploy softwares on your computers and servers, that is a powerful tool, with a very good price that really worths the investiment. We were able to keep all our computers and softwares updated, and we have pushed some Windows build updates through PDQ Deploy, which worked very well! If you do not have a inventory/deploy solution on your environment, and cannot spend so much money with it, go with PDQ without think twice, you will not regret!

Pros:

It is easy to implement, configure and to use it, everything on this software is so intuitive, even if you not read the manual you can do more than 50% of the software functionalities. The software has a wide variety of options to deploy softwares to your computers, also, if you spend a few bucks more, you can buy the PDQ Inventory, which works very well integrated with the Deploy solution.

Cons:

The error messages on the deploys are not so clear, it difficults the troubleshooting on the first time without some research.

Inexpensive, Hierarchecal, and Scalable

Comments: My overall experience with inventory has been very positive. Whenever I change jobs I encourage them to switch to PDQ. After its adoption, my team shares my enthusiasm.

Pros:

I like the ability to create nested groups, that can be dynamic or static. I will also enjoy the ability to use multiple compound statements, without limitation in order to drill down and find devices that meet whatever criteria I can dream up or that I've been given.

Cons:

The only problems I've really run into is the speed that you're able to scan large scale organizations with a lot of VPN users. Occasionally DNS does not update quickly enough so you wind up with an IP pointing to a different workstation. This doesn't really cause a great deal of problems, it just causes the scan to fail. It's not a huge deal because it will correct itself during the next scan typically

PDQ has become the most used toolset in my career.

Comments: This is the 2nd job I have had with PDQ. Part of the reason I was hired for this position was my knowledge of PDQ. The previous admins had purchased but no one knew how to use it. The overall system was in a neglected state. In the 9 months I have been here I have rebuilt and moved PDQ to new servers and changed the way Patch management was done. I retired WSUS because I can do all that it does and more with PDQ. So much more. And the customer support is amazing. I use it when I am stuck with what seems to be unique to our company issues and your staff makes it simple to resolve. I do believe I have become a much more efficient engineer because of PDQ. Keep up the awesome work!!

Pros:

Automation is a must when you have over 400 devices. It makes complex problems much easier to accomplish.

Cons:

I really have not had time to learn all of the features of your products. But that is not on PDQ. Your YouTube videos are amazing and fun to watch. Keep up the humor. That goes a long way in IT.

A good choice for privacy conscious companies

Pros:

There are no agents to install on systems being inventoried and it is installed locally on your own network (even just a local desktop) which make a it quick to install and keeps all the communications and data within your local network.

Cons:

Because it is agentless there are issues when trying to inventory systems that are removed from the local network, e.g. Home workers.

PDQ deployment and Inventory

Comments: Can't tell something bad about it, easy to use, affordable price, nice support.

Pros:

Most of all, we use PDQ deployment, easy way to deploy software and patches. PDQ deployment is good for script automation, easy to set up any scheduled task to meet your requirements.

Cons:

Devices outside the local network are not manageable.

The one thing you got to have

Comments: Used it at previous job, and when I came discovered they had a competitor. Tried to learn the competitor's patch management and device management. It was a headache and time consuming. Got the boss to purchase PDQ and right of the bat, everyone could use it quickly and efficiently without reading a 100 page pdf on how to use it. So intuitive and easy to use. I use it daily to manage my computers and make sure everything is up to date. Boss has come to me a couple times asking for a list of XYZ, and expecting that it is a project for the rest of the day, I'm able to get that to him within the hour, sometimes in ten minutes.

Pros:

the dynamic collections you can make has been life changing. Able to create one on the fly and it continue to update and tell me if new computers have something unwanted on it, or computers that are missing important programs. I use it daily to check things. I also use it to quickly remote into computers. I have computers on the road and I have to jump in there sometimes remotely and need to be able to look at software lists quickly and a couple clicks my remote software is already connected. Or I can use pdq deploy to shoot out a program update or install something new. PDQ Deploy has all the right switches and knows exactly what to do with files to silently deploy practically anything. Testing is simple and easy and usually I have it tested and deployed within an hour. Saves me time everyday to quickly do what I need to do and have time to work on other projects. Support is also a godsend. Quick, easy, and friendly to the max!

Cons:

Not much that I do not like. The new icons are weird and there are some bugs in pdq deploy that get updates stuck and they just sit in the list forever. Usually when I have a con come up in my mind, I find out that the feature request I thought of, is already in the system some where.

PDQ Inventory - wouldn't want to live without it

Pros:

The interface closely resembles MMC which I'm used to. It's super fast when searching for something in particular about a computer or computers. The reports are customizable and very useful.

Cons:

I have no complaints about this software. It's amazing.

Great price for a product that does what it supposed to do. Love it!

Comments: Easy to install and collect asset inventory.

Pros:

Ease of install and use. Great inventory/asset management functionality.

Cons:

Can't manage remote devices at user's home that's not on the LAN/WAN (corporate network).

Great Product

Comments: It has been great. It is easy to use and navigate. It makes it easy to push out patches and software to computers. We no longer have to go to each computer to install products. The built in Vendors is such a great feature and one I use often, it saves me from having to go out and down load software from the Vendor constantly!

Pros:

It is easy to use and makes my job more efficient.

Cons:

I would like the Deploy and Inventory products in one interface. I understand though that people may only want one of the products. It would be nice to have them integrated together for those that use both products.

Excellent Deployment and Installation Tool

Comments: Was able to install products that GPOs couldn't. Was able to discretely target systems, or initiate a sitewide roll-out.

Pros:

Many options for setting up install and deploy routines. Automatically refreshed network inventory. Active Directory Integration. Ability to target by queries, OUs or just about anything.Good integration between the prodcts (Deploy and Inventory). Good reporting.

Cons:

Can be kind of daunting for new users. A bit slow sometimes.

PDQ Deploy for Education

Comments: I literally cannot do my job without this software. I daresay that once you try it, you will find that you will agree with me.

Pros:

The software itself works really well. The hard part consists of getting all the machines to talk to each other and then figuring out the silent command -line statements that are needed to install the software. For most of the well-known software, the silent switches are well known and for the most popular tools PDQ will even supply their own scripts.

Cons:

I'd love PDQ Deploy to re-imagine their local Agent idea. The last time they tried it supposedly didnt meet their standards. I'd say look at other software like Goverlan and even AWS Thinkbox Deadline (a renderfarm manager) to see how they do a local Agent to see if those would meet the criteria. PDQ has no ability to install software that doesn't offer a command-line silent switch. You'd think that this would never come up in Education but... you'd be surprised. We run a lot of 3D and VFX apps that are made by one developer and when you ask them for the silent switches they reply "what are you talking about" . Now, to be sure, this isn't really a "con" of PDQ, but it is fair to mention. If you have any software that just doesn't have any command-line automation which can run silently via a Windows Service User, you'll have to get something alongside PDQ Deploy to make that happen.

Software Patching and Deployment Made Simple with PDQ

Comments: It is helping us to automate our patching;  and remotely installing new software;  and updating systems on a number of devices at once. Patching third-party applications has traditionally been a time-consuming task, but PDQ makes it incredibly simple and quick. Almost no problems have arisen when applying patches or software updates.  It's now simpler than ever to deploy new applications to all workstations.

Pros:

It has helped me save time.  Our organization has limited IT staff and your software has immensly helped us to automate patching and installing software on our systems.   We are using PDQ to update some of our applications such as Chrome, FireFox, Notepad ++, and Audacity.As a result of Covid, most of our staff had to move to work remotely. We were able to support our staff remotely using PDQ.

Cons:

There is a little learning curve, especially for installations that are more complicated. However, there is excellent documentation, and there is a wealth of data online.   The cost was a bit costly for our organization, but it was well worth it.    Although I don't use the software to its full potential, I'm sure there are some sophisticated functions that others could find useful.    It would also be wonderful to have more software packages included with PDQ right out of the box or at the very least an ability to patch in more commonplace software.

PDQ Deploy is wonderful for Windows networks

Comments: Overall, I absolutely loved PDQ products when paired in a mostly Windows environment. My needs were simple, and PDQ worked wonderfully. You can test out both PDQ Deploy and Inventory before you buy, and I highly suggest you do so. It is one of the fastest, most lightweight products I've ever used, and I'd recommend it in almost all scenarios where Windows is your main OS.

Pros:

PDQ Deploy and Inventory are one of the absolute best if you have only Windows based end machines in your network. It is really, really fast, and well laid out. I doubt you'll have to read the manual in most cases. The resource usage of PDQ products is extremely light and not demanding.

Cons:

It's really made for mostly Windows based networks, and works best when all machines are on-prem, or connected via VPN in my experience. If you need really complex IF / THEN type deployment or patching on other OSes, you may wish to look at BigFix.

Great for free features, can't afford pay features.

Comments: IT has been great for years, I love that I can just click a computer and remote desktop by hitting keys, I love that it scans and tells me it needs rebooting, although that is getting to be to much now, it has always been great in the past. I can also run commands turning on/off services, that allow other software to work on them as well, but I don't need left on all the time.

Pros:

It allows me to do many things from 1 central place that I could do for free with other scripts and tools, but PDQ has made put it all into one nice package.

Cons:

Wake on lan tool used to work better over vLans now I have to use another tool for that. It is also saying computers need to be rebooting almost everyday even when computers don't seem to say themselves. This is the key feature I use PDQ Inventory for, scan and see if they are all up to date and need restart for updates.

Inventory management at it's best.

Comments: Having Inventory is wonderful. Being able to quickly gather data on new or existing PCs is crucial. The more recent addition of the Powershell scanner makes the product pretty much universal to do whatever you can think of for reporting.

Pros:

The report writing is so much nicer than other options which typically require in-depth knowledge of SQL or other coding languages.

Cons:

Adding a large amount of file and registry scanners when scanning 5000+ devices has caused some issues with the database growing too large leading to performance issues and/or memory leaks.

Just Get It !! You will never regret it !!

Comments: It is an amazing piece of software what takes a huge amount of headache away. It is quick, easy. If you want want to do software install and update deployment quick and easy you need PDQ Deploy !!

Pros:

This product is super easy to use. Most standard packages are already build for you (and every new update there is more) what can be super easy rolled out to a test machine and then production. If you want custom installation it is so easy to install/copy - install/ create little batch files or full on powershell scripts. This is super easy comparing to SCCM or even WSUS.

Cons:

I had to think long and hard about what could be improved and even asked my co-workers.... and really there is nothing at this moment what needs to be improved. It does what needs to be done and is super easy. (edit: Perhaps the only thing is that the log files with errors could be more detailed to directly been viewed)

An efficient solution for monitoring asset status and reporting.

Pros:

- mostly easy to use - lots of templates to use and edit - provides a wide range of information and details about a specific device - grouping devices into collections according to different combinations of parameters

Cons:

sometimes it is not easy to debug some more complex reports, but this is not directly a defect of the application itself

Easy to get started with - lots more features once you're up and running!

Comments: PDQ is a massive time-saver - it allows me to manage way more devices than I could manually. It automates the drudgery of setting up and subsequently updating devices for users in my organisation, allowing me to get on with value-added development work, enhancements to business systems etc. PDQ gives me the peace of mind that my endpoints are updated, secure and all offer the same experience to my users.

Pros:

I took over at an organisation with a fleet of servers, laptops and desktops that had been poorly maintained - each seemed to have a random selection of applications on an unpatched OS and there was no central knowledge of what was installed where. I was also on my own so didn't have time to investigate each endpoint individually - PDQ made it easy to automatically catalogue and then remediate all the issues out there - from the comfort of my desk!

Cons:

There's nothing that I don't actually like about PDQ - my only issue is that I haven't had time to investigate all its many options and features! It was easy to get up to a good baseline and then I guess I didn't further my knowledge of its capabilities - that's all on me. Reading this questionnaire, it's clear it can do way more than I was aware of.

Great for software deployment

Comments: When SCCM failed, and the admin was unable to resolve issues. Local IT (global company) used PDQ for software deployment as the SCCM admin never got it working for a long time. PDQ simplify software deployment and updates, helped manage devices and setup new machines in no time at all. The main admin of PDQ became the SCCM admin after using this product as a learning curve and step to SCCM. Now SCCM is working with new admin, pdq is not required as much but still a tool I rely on regularly.

Pros:

Simple to useFree edition is greatLicences are not expensive Can share xml files for software deployment between users on free versionGreat for deploying scripts

Cons:

Cannot manage OS updatesOnly works on internal network/VPN - not cloud basedPdq inventory is a separate program, not integrated

Simple, functional, reliable

Comments: PDQ Deploy is an excellent value. I've used it at previous jobs and have introduced it in every new job. The amount of time saved is staggering.

Pros:

The reliability and ease of use of PDQ is great. I also love the ability to customize and create packages. If you can script it, you can deploy it.

Cons:

I still like the idea of PDQ Link, or similar software. During the pandemic, a lot of our machines were never on our local network, so PDQ Deploy and Inventory had limited use for us. We had no way to deploy software to users unless their machine was back on our network. Even when users are using a VPN to connect to our network remotely, deployments still don't work (probably something on our end). I am currently looking at other options like FileWave to do off network support and inventory.

PDQ deploy has helped fill in the gaps with application deployment and management

Pros:

Highly customizable to fit our business needs. When paired with PDQ Inventory, we're able to target specific groups of endpoints based on certain attributes.

Cons:

PDQ Deploy and Inventory could be more tightly integrated.

Great, cost effective way to manage software, patch and vulnerability deployments

Pros:

Being able to have PDQ automatically scan and monitor our devices allows patches, new software and vulnerability fixes to be deployed in a set and forget method.

Cons:

We've had some technical issues that have been hard to get support with as there is no support provided in our time zone, allowing only one question/response a day.

Modern Tool for Deployment

Pros:

easy to use and no prior experience needed and no need of agent

Cons:

not all features that sccm offers available in this deployment tool ..no full reporting available

THE Best application for the money in the IT space!

Comments: We have been using PDQ for the past 10 years and it keeps getting better and better. The installs are fast and responsive. Their video training is excellent as well as the videos are straight and to the point with great screen captures and explanations. We will never be without PDQ!

Pros:

This application allows us to push out "one off" applications and gives us the ability to know right away if the application install was successful. They have a ton of templates built for commonly used applications and constantly updating their pushes and templates. Their support is second to none! They are super responsive and always willing to go above and beyond in helping our team with application pushes that are out of the ordinary. If an application fails to install successfully from a push, you can also email support right from the error message without having to do copy and paste. More support teams should follow their lead. I can't say enough good things about them.

Cons:

Honestly, I don't have any cons about this software.

Very useful for discovering, managing, and resolving problems with hardware and software.

Comments: Great overall experience. My team and I use it daily for a wide variety of use cases, ranging from security patching, break-fix, reporting, problem correlation, and remote control of computers. We use many of these use cases in conjunction with PDQ Deploy. It is the most comprehensive computer management tool I have used.

Pros:

Dynamic Collections, advanced querying, custom scans with PowerShell, and flexibility with building tools.

Cons:

No recycle bin or version control. It's easy to break advanced configurations by making the wrong change and having to recreate from scratch. Collection Membership updating performance could be improved; occasionally while creating and tweaking new filters, the update time can be problematic.