A system and method for automatic workload domain deployment in a computing environment uses hardware groups (HGs) formed from hardware specifications (HSs) for a plurality of free host computers in the computing environment to select the free host computers to deploy a workload domain. When a capacity requirement for the workload domain cannot be met with the free host computers belonging to one of the HSs, a particular HG from the HGs is identified that can meet the capacity requirement with the free hosts belonging to the HSs of the particular HG. The workload domain is then deployed to deploy using at least some of the free hosts belonging to the HSs of the particular HG.