Feature Set:  

There were a few features of SpyBuddy that didn't work during our review. The forwarding of activity reports to the specified email address never did work. Many of the main menu options didn't match the subordinate details. For example, it said zero websites were visited, when in reality many were visited. Another one said 24 keystrokes recorded, but yet there were no entries for the keystrokes. The other applications tested were all recorded correctly.

SpyBuddy didn't catch any keystrokes or printing of emails through Outlook Express.

Ease of Use:  

SpyBuddy has an interesting "Thread Priority" option. For most users, this is way beyond the non-techies ability to accurately make any alterations. For a techie with a machine that is low on resources, this is a good option.

Ease of Installation:  

There are wizards that prompt you through the installation process. While some spyware/monitoring applications choose defaults for the installation, SpyBuddy chooses to force the user into making all of the decisions during the install process.

Monitoring Effectiveness:  

SpyBuddy does have a lot of features to control different monitoring aspects. As an added bonus, SpyBuddy is one of the few spyware/monitoring products that include filtering options as part of the package. The filtering is for doing basic filtering of specific keywords and websites, or blocking of applications. This filter is not a full-blown filtering system that you would find in a dedicated Internet Filter.

Help/Documentation:  

The Help is not context sensitive and is not as in-depth as some of the other products.

Overall, SpyBuddy needs some fine-tuning of its software development processes including design and quality control, before it will be considered a top product in the spyware-monitoring software marketplace.