How are .NET applications deployed in general?

Automating your application deployments is a key to avoid human errors and bring up the efficiency. However, when it comes to the .NET (and ASP.NET) world, the question is, which tools are being used? You might already know tools like MSDeploy or Octopus, and perhaps Puppet and Chef, but is there any data to back up the claim, "which tools are the most-widely used ones?".

It turns out there is a study on this, and it is available on David Whitney's blog post. The post is about a year old at this point, but is surely useful in 2016, too. The study lists the most commonly used deployment automation tools, and highlights results of the study.

Be sure to check this out, especially if you are still deploying manually. A PDF summary is also available.

Happy deploying!