Is there a command line to deploy a SQL Server database project?

For a fresh database instance (not an incremental update to a database), MSDeploy should do the trick. Here's a quick post I found on the subject. I haven't actually done it myself yet, but a collegue says it's worked in his environment.

I managed to find a command line tool to do this. It's called VSDBCMD.EXE and it comes with Visual Studio 2010. I first learned about it here (scroll to the bottom of the article), then I followed a link and found the details of how to get it installed on my server.

In the second article, if you're on a 64 bit machine, you won't find the VSTSDB directory under Program Files... you'll need to look under Program Files (x86).

I followed the instructions to the letter (installed both the 32-bit and 64-bit version of SQL CE) and it's working great. I basically take the output of a build from my SQL Server 2008 database project, zip it up and put it on the server, then run the deploy script.

The first time I did this, the target database didn't exist. The tool created the database and set it up nicely. Then I tried adding a column to a table in my project. I rebuilt the project and took the output and deployed as before, and it correctly altered the existing table, just like it would have done by right-clicking and selecting Deploy.

Seems to be working well so far. Hope this helps!