Swyvl vs DroneDeploy
If you fly and process in DroneDeploy, keep it for that. Swyvl is for what happens after: delivering every file a survey or drone job produces, whichever software made it, to a client who opens one link in a browser, organized by site and date.
Everything below about DroneDeploy comes from their own website and public help center, read on 7 November 2026. We have not tested their product. Where their documentation is silent, the page says "not documented" rather than guessing.
The short answer
Keep DroneDeploy if capture and processing are the work. If you plan flights, run docks or robots, turn drone images into orthomosaics and models, or compute volumes and cut and fill, DroneDeploy does things Swyvl does not do at all.
Choose Swyvl if delivery is the work. If a job ends with an orthomosaic from Pix4D, an E57 from the scanner, a flight video, a set of 360° photos and a PDF report that all have to reach a client who will not create an account, Swyvl opens every one of those in a browser and keeps them anchored to the site and the date.
Plenty of teams run both: DroneDeploy for the flights and the processing, Swyvl for the deliverable. If you mostly use DroneDeploy for ground 360° walks, we compared that case separately in Is there a DroneDeploy alternative for 360 site walkthroughs?
Being straight about it
Where DroneDeploy is stronger
Five things they do that we either do worse or do not do. If any of these decide your purchase, DroneDeploy is the better buy and you should not take our word for the rest.
Capture, start to finish
Flight planning, automated flights, docked drones and ground robots such as Boston Dynamics Spot, all feeding one processing workflow. Swyvl does not plan or fly anything.
Photogrammetry processing
Upload drone images and get an orthomosaic, elevation model, point cloud and 3D model back. Swyvl does not process photogrammetry. You bring finished outputs.
Volumes and earthworks
Volume measurement, cut and fill against a design surface, GCP workflows, radiometric thermal and facade inspection. Swyvl measures distance, area and height, and has no volume or cut and fill at all.
Floor-plan 360° walks with BIM and AI
Walks captured on a hard hat, placed on drawings per level, compared against an IFC model, rebuilt as measurable 3D on Ground Pro, with Progress AI and Safety AI add-ons. Swyvl places 360s on a map by GPS and does not overlay BIM on them.
Integrations and certifications
Sync to Procore, Autodesk, Esri and cloud drives, and DroneDeploy is now part of Procore. They cite ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2. Swyvl has no such integrations and is aligned to ISO 27001 and SOC 2 but not yet certified.
Where Swyvl is stronger
Mostly a question of scope. DroneDeploy goes deep on capturing and processing its own data. Swyvl takes whatever the job produced and gets it in front of the client.
Any file, from any software
Pix4D, Metashape, DJI Terra, RealityScan, Leica Cyclone, FARO, XGRIDS, Insta360. LAZ, E57, splats, 3D Tiles, DWG and elevation models all open in a browser. DroneDeploy documents a much narrower list of upload types for data it did not process.
The whole delivery in one link
The orthomosaic, scan, flight video, 360s and the PDF report on one share link per site, each in the viewer built for it. On DroneDeploy, individual videos and walks need a login to view from their share link.
Clients never need a seat
Public, password or invite-only links on every plan. Invited clients reply on notes for free with no account to set up. DroneDeploy says invitees typically need a paid or trial account unless an Enterprise organization invites them.
A price you can read
Free to start, $49 a month for one person, $199 for five. DroneDeploy publishes $4,188 a year for a single-user drone plan that excludes ground capture, and quotes everything else.
You choose the region, on any plan
Eight named storage regions, picked at signup, on Free included. DroneDeploy stores data in the US unless a contract says otherwise.
Files measured in tens of gigabytes
Up to 100 GB per file on every plan, with no image count. DroneDeploy documents 30 GB for a LAS on Ground Pro and 5 GB on Enterprise.
Side by side
DroneDeploy details as published on their site and help center on 7 November 2026. Swyvl details are what ships today.
| DroneDeploy | Swyvl | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is built for | Capturing and processing sites: flight planning, docked drones, ground robots, 360° walks on a phone app, then maps, models and AI analysis on top. | Delivering everything a survey or drone job produces to a client, whichever software made it, anchored to the site and the date it was captured. |
| Capture | Their flight app, docked drones, Boston Dynamics Spot and Unitree Go2-W robots, 360° cameras through the Ground app, and iPhone or iPad LiDAR scans on Ground Pro. | None. Swyvl does not fly, drive or scan. You upload what your capture and processing software exported. |
| Processing | Photogrammetry from drone images into orthomosaics, elevation models, point clouds and 3D models. 3,000 images per map on Flight & Analysis, 10,000 on Advanced. 360° walks processed and placed on plans; Ground Pro rebuilds walks as measurable 3D. | No photogrammetry. Swyvl recognizes each upload and prepares a browser-ready version, such as COPC for large point clouds and COG for GeoTIFFs. |
| Files you made elsewhere | Documented upload types: preprocessed GeoTIFFs on paid Aerial plans (8-bit, multi-band, uncompressed, no elevation), .las point clouds on Enterprise (5 GB) and Ground Pro (30 GB), IFC up to 300 MB, single-page PDF and PNG drawings, and 360° video as .insv or .mp4. Their LAS article says .obj and other 3D formats are not compatible. | 40+ file types from any software: LAS, LAZ, E57, PTX, PTS, XYZ, GeoTIFF and COG orthomosaics and elevation models, 3D Tiles, Gaussian splats, XGRIDS LCC and LCC2, GLB, OBJ, FBX, IFC, DXF, DWG, shapefiles, 360° photos and video, DJI video with SRT, PDFs and images. |
| Largest file | 30 GB for a .las on Ground Pro, 5 GB on Enterprise. 300 MB for an IFC. | Up to 100 GB per file on every plan. |
| Measurement and analysis | Distance, area, elevation and volume, with cut and fill against a design surface, GCP workflows, radiometric thermal and facade inspection on Advanced. Volumes are not available on uploaded GeoTIFFs or LAS files. | Point, distance, area and height in every 3D and map viewer, each badged Georeferenced, True scale or Indicative. No volume, no cut and fill. |
| Sharing outside the team | View-only link to one map date, or to the whole project on Enterprise project packages, with annotations and measurements visible and an iframe embed. Individual videos, photo groups and walks need a login to view from their share link. | One share link per site carrying every file type, opened in a browser with no account. Files can be added after the link is sent. |
| Password or named-people links | Invite named people by email to a project or folder. Project access without a paid seat is documented for people invited by an Enterprise organization; on other plans invitees typically need a paid or trial account. Password-protected view-only links are not documented as of 7 November 2026. | Public, password or invite-only on every plan, changeable after sending and revocable at once. Invited clients never take a paid seat. |
| How long the link lasts | Link expiry is not documented in their help center as of 7 November 2026. | No expiry. The link stays live until you revoke it. |
| Client feedback | Collaborators in the project can annotate and comment according to their role and plan. | People you invite by email reply on notes pinned to the spot, with photos and a sketch, free and with no account to set up. Clients can approve or request changes. |
| Who opened what | Link share views are counted in Data Exchange, an Enterprise export for your data warehouse. A per-viewer access log is not documented as of 7 November 2026. | Every open, view, download and reply logged with the time, the file and the location, kept for two years. |
| Your branding | Your company logo in the bottom-left corner of every map, on Individual Advanced, Teams and Enterprise. | Your logo, accent color and a header message on each share link from the $49 plan up. |
| Exports and integrations | JPG, GeoTIFF, DEM, contour DXF and SHP, OBJ, LAS, XYZ and PDF, plus RCP and source imagery on Enterprise. Sync with Procore, Autodesk, Esri, SharePoint, Box, Amazon S3 and more. | Originals download as uploaded. Browser-ready versions are open formats (COPC, COG, 3D Tiles, GeoJSON). No sync integrations with Procore, Esri or Autodesk. |
| Where files are stored | US data centers unless your contract says otherwise. A data residency program regionalizes imagery, processing and outputs under special terms, with metadata and some features (Livemap, BIM model comparison, Safety AI, AI Annotations) still on US servers. Regions are not listed publicly. | Your choice of 8 regions at signup, on every plan: Australia, US East, US West, UK, Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore. |
| Price | Two published prices: Flight & Analysis at $4,188 a year for one admin user ("Ground capture processing not included") and Ag Lite at $1,908 a year. Advanced, Aerial, Ground, Ground Pro and Unified are quote-only. | Free, then $49 and $199 a month in USD, about 15% off yearly. Client viewers are always free. |
| How you start | A 14-day free trial with no credit card, then buy a single-user plan or book a discovery session. | Free plan, sign up yourself, no credit card. Paid plans bought online. |
Sources for the DroneDeploy column: dronedeploy.com, their pricing page and their help center at help.dronedeploy.com, read 7 November 2026. Upload limits and feature access vary by plan, and several plans are sold on quote. Prices and plan limits change. Check theirs with them before deciding.
Which one fits your work
Keep DroneDeploy if
- You plan and fly missions, or run docked drones and ground robots.
- You need drone images processed into orthomosaics, elevation models and 3D.
- Volumes, cut and fill, GCPs or thermal analysis are part of the job.
- Your sites are buildings with a drawing per floor and you compare 360° walks against BIM.
- You are a Procore shop, or your data has to sync to Esri or Autodesk.
Pick Swyvl if
- You process in Pix4D, Metashape, DJI Terra or RealityScan and need somewhere to deliver the outputs.
- A job ends with several file types: orthomosaics, scans, E57s, splats, video, 360s, DWGs and PDFs.
- Your client will not create an account, and should never cost you a seat.
- The link has to still work when they come back in two years.
- You want the same site to accumulate dated visits you can read back.
- You need to choose the country your files are stored in, without a contract negotiation.
- You are one person, or a small team, and want a price on the website.
They are not mutually exclusive. Export the orthomosaic, point cloud and model from DroneDeploy, upload them to the site in Swyvl next to the scan and the report, and send one link.
Questions people ask about both
Is Swyvl a DroneDeploy alternative?
For delivery, yes. For capture and processing, no. Swyvl does not plan flights, process photogrammetry or compute volumes. It takes the finished files from DroneDeploy or any other software and puts them in front of your client on one share link, organized by site and date.
Can I upload data DroneDeploy did not process?
Some. Their help center documents preprocessed GeoTIFFs (8-bit, uncompressed, multi-band) on paid Aerial plans, .las point clouds on Enterprise and Ground Pro, IFC models, PDF and PNG drawings, and 360° video. Swyvl takes 40+ file types from any software, including LAZ, E57, splats, XGRIDS scans and DWG, up to 100 GB per file.
What does DroneDeploy cost?
As of 7 November 2026 their pricing page lists Flight & Analysis at $4,188 a year for one admin user, marked "Ground capture processing not included", and Ag Lite at $1,908 a year. Every other plan, including Ground and Unified, is quote-only. Swyvl publishes its prices: free, $49 and $199 a month.
Can a client open a DroneDeploy map without an account?
Yes. A view-only link to a map date opens without a login on all paid accounts, unless an Enterprise admin has switched that off. Their help center says individual videos, photo groups and walks need a login to view from their share link. A Swyvl share link opens every file on the site with no account. How share links work.
Where does DroneDeploy store data?
In US data centers unless your contract says otherwise, according to their help center. A data residency program keeps imagery, processing and outputs in a local region under special terms, with metadata and a few features on US servers. Swyvl stores your files in one of eight regions you choose at signup, on every plan.
Did Procore buy DroneDeploy?
Yes. Procore announced the roughly $845 million deal in July 2026 and press coverage reports it closed in September 2026. Good news if you run Procore. If you do not, ask DroneDeploy how it affects your plan. We compared Swyvl with Procore in Swyvl vs Procore.
Send one link with the whole delivery on it
Upload last month's job, orthomosaic, scan, video and report, and see what your client opens. Free plan covers 5 GB, no credit card.