presentation pro alternative

The best presentation software

These powerpoint alternatives go beyond the basics..

The latest presentation apps have made it easier than ever to format slides and create professional-looking slideshows without giving off a "this is a template" vibe. Even standard PowerPoint alternatives have updated key features to make it easier than ever to collaborate and create presentations quickly, so you can spend more time prepping for your actual presentation.

If, like me, you've been using Google Slides unquestioningly for years, it's a whole new world out there. The newest crop of online presentation tools go way beyond the classic slideshow experience, with new features to keep your audience's attention, streamline the creation process with AI, and turn slide decks into videos and interactive conversations.

I've been testing these apps for the past few years, and this time, I spent several days tinkering with the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog .

When looking for the best presentation apps, I wanted utility players. After all, slideshows are used for just about everything, from pitch decks and product launches to class lectures and church sermons. With that in mind, here's what I was looking for:

Pre-built templates. The best presentation tools should have attractive, professional-looking templates to build presentations in a hurry.

Sharing and collaboration options. Whether you plan to share your webinar slides later, or you just want to collaborate with a coworker on a presentation, it should be easy to share files and collaborate in real-time.

Flexibility and customization options. Templates are great, but top presentation apps should enable you to customize just about everything—giving you the flexibility to build exactly what you need.

Affordability. Creating compelling presentations is important, but you shouldn't have to bust your budget to make it happen. With capable free tools on the market, affordability is a top consideration.

Standalone functionality. There's no reason to use multiple tools when one can do it all, so I didn't test any apps that require and work on top of another presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Familiar, deck-based UI. For our purposes here, I only tested software that uses slides, with the familiar deck-based editor you expect from a "presentation" tool (versus, for example, a video creation app).

While many apps now offer AI features in one way or another, I found many of these features to be lacking still—they're often slow, struggle to pull in relevant imagery, and yield wildly inconsistent designs. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict requirement (for now!), and I've still included apps that don't offer AI. (Of course, if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images from a separate tool and copy them into your presentation app of choice.)

Beyond that, I also looked for presentation apps that brought something unique to the table—features above and beyond what you can get for free from a legacy solution like PowerPoint or Google Slides. (And I opted not to test any brand new apps that are still in beta, since there are so many established options out there.)

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

I created a new deck, scanning through all available templates, noting how well-designed they were (and which were free versus paid).

I added new slides, deleted slides, edited text and images, and played around with other content types.

I changed presentation design settings, like color schemes and background images.

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

After my first round of testing, I went back into the top performers to test any unique or niche features like AI, brand settings, interactive content, and more. With that, these are the best presentation apps I found—each one really brings something different or radically easy to the table.

The best presentation software: at a glance

The best free presentation software, canva (web, windows, mac, android, ios).

Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

The Magic Design AI tool is still inconsistent and not super impressive

Canva offers one of the most robust free plans of all the presentation apps I tested. The app delays account creation until after you've created your first design, so you can get started building your presentation in seconds. Choose from an almost overwhelming number of beautiful templates (nearly all available for free), including those designed specifically for education or business use cases.

Anyone who's accidentally scrolled too far and been bumped to the next slide will appreciate Canva's editor interface, which eliminates that problem altogether with a smooth scroll that doesn't jump around. Choose from a handful of preset animations to add life to your presentations, or browse the library of audio and video files available to add. And Canva also has a number of options for sharing your presentation, including adding collaborators to your team, sharing directly to social media, and even via QR code.

Present directly from Canva, and let audience members submit their questions via Canva Live. Once you share a link to invite audience members to your presentation, they can send questions for you to answer. As the presenter, you'll see them pop up in your presenter view window, so you can keep the audience engaged and your presentation clear. Alternatively, record a presentation with a talking head bubble—you can even use an AI presenter here—to share remotely.

Canvas has added a number of AI-powered tools , but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. When I asked the Magic Design tool to generate a presentation from scratch, for example, the result was a bunch of unrelated images, inconsistent design, and surface-level copy. These features will likely improve in time, but for now, you're better off starting from one of Canva's many great templates.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $119.99/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

The best presentation app for AI-powered design

Beautiful.ai (web, mac, windows).

Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

Generative AI features aren't great yet

If you're like me, editing granular spacing issues is the absolute worst part of building a presentation. Beautiful.ai uses artificial intelligence to take a lot of the hassle and granular design requirements out of the presentation process, so you can focus on the content of a presentation without sacrificing professional design. If I needed to make presentations on a regular basis, this is the app I'd use.

Many apps have recently added AI design features, but Beautiful.ai has been doing it for years—and they've perfected the UX of AI design, ensuring the tool's reign as the most streamlined and user-friendly option for AI design.

The editor is a little different from most presentation apps, but it's still intuitive—and you'll start off with a quick two-minute tutorial. When creating a new slide, scroll through "inspiration slides" to find a layout you like; once you choose, the app will pull the layout and automatically adapt it to match the design of the rest of your presentation.

With 10 themes, several templated slides, over 40 fully-designed templates, and 23 different color palettes to choose from, Beautiful.ai strikes a perfect balance between automation and customization.

While Beautiful.ai doesn't offer a free plan, paid plans are reasonably priced and offer sharing and collaboration options that rival collab-focused apps like Google Slides. And speaking of Google, you can connect Beautiful.ai with Google Drive to save all your presentations there.

Note: I did test the newly released generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) and felt it wasn't much to write home about. It's great for adding individual slides to an existing presentation—automatically choosing the best layout and matching the design to the rest of the deck—but as with most other apps, it struggled to generate a quality presentation from scratch.

Beautiful.ai pricing: Plans start at $12/month for unlimited slides, AI content generation, viewer analytics, and more. Upgrade to a Team plan for $40/user/month to get extra collaboration and workspace features and custom brand controls.

If you're a founder looking for an AI presentation tool for your pitch deck, Slidebean is a great Beautiful.ai alternative for startups. The app offers a number of templates; a unique, content-first outline editor; and AI design help that you can toggle on or off for each slide. I didn't include it on the list mainly because of the price: the free plan is quite limited, and the paid all-access plan starts at $228/year.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

Prezi (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Prezi pros:

Doesn't restrict you to standard presentation structure

Lots of customization options

Prezi Video lets you display a presentation right over your webcam video

Prezi cons:

Steep learning curve

Struggling to squeeze information into a basic, linear presentation? Give Prezi a try. Unlike nearly all other presentation apps on the market, Prezi Present doesn't restrict the structure of your presentation to a straight line. The editor focuses on topics and subtopics and allows you to arrange them any way you want, so you can create a more conversational flow of information.

With the structural flexibility, you still get all the same customization features you expect from top presentation software, including fully-editable templates. There's a learning curve if you're unfamiliar with non-linear presentations, but templates offer a great jumping-off point, and Prezi's editor does a good job of making the process more approachable.

Plus, Prezi comes with two other apps: Prezi Design and Prezi Video. Prezi Video helps you take remote presentations to a new level. You can record a video where the presentation elements are displayed right over your webcam feed. Record and save the video to share later, or connect with your video conferencing tool of choice (including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet) to present live.

Prezi pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans start at $5/month and include additional features like private presentations and Prezi Present.

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (web, ios, android).

Powtoon pros:

Timing automatically changes based on the content on the slide

Can toggle between slideshow and video

Can orient presentation as horizontal, vertical, or square

Powtoon cons:

Limited free plan

Powtoon makes it easy to create engaging videos by orienting the editor around a slide deck. Editing a Powtoon feels just like editing a presentation, but by the time you finish, you have a professional video. 

You can edit your slides at any time, and when you hit play, a video plays through your deck—the feel is almost like an animated explainer video. Each slide includes the animations you choose and takes up as much time as is needed based on the content on the slide. Powtoon figures the timing automatically, and you can see in the bottom-right of the editor how much time is used on your current slide versus the total presentation. If you ever want to present as a slide deck, just toggle between Slideshow and Movie.

You'll likely need to subscribe to a paid plan to get the most out of Powtoon—like creating videos longer than three minutes, downloading them as MP4 files, and white-labeling your presentations—but doing so won't break the bank. Plus, you'll unlock tons of templates complete with animations and soundtracks.

One of my favorite Powtoon features is the ability to orient your video: you can choose horizontal orientation (like a normal presentation) or opt for vertical (for mobile) or square (for social media). When your presentation is ready, you can publish straight to YouTube, Wistia, Facebook Ads, and any number of other locations.

Powtoon pricing: Limited free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, and more.

The best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (web).

Genially pros:

Don't need a presenter (it's interactive)

You can set universal branding guidelines

Unlimited creations on the free plan

Genially cons:

Free plan has some limitations worth looking into (e.g., can only make public presentations)

While many presentation apps are built for presenter-led decks, Genially 's interactive features and animated templates make it easy to build a self-led presentation. A variety of interactive buttons allow you to show viewers additional context on hover, have them skip to any page of your deck, and let them navigate to external links.

This presentation program offers a bunch of searchable templates, including some for business proposals, reports, social media presentations, and more (though most of those are available on premium plans only). Genially also includes Smart blocks —templated blocks of content for elements like data visualizations and image galleries.

My favorite feature is the brand settings. Premium users can set universal branding guidelines that include your logo, color scheme, fonts, images, and backgrounds, among other options. Think of them like a custom template, created and customized by you, that the whole team can use. Once set, your team can easily create on-brand presentations that automatically apply your brand settings, without even thinking about it.

Plus, Genially supports additional content like training materials, infographics, and interactive images—all subject to your brand presets.

Genially pricing: Free plan available with unlimited creations and views and access to templates; paid plans start at $7.49/month and include additional download options, privacy controls, offline viewing, premium templates, and more.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

Pitch (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Start live video calls straight from decks

Pitch cons:

User interface is a little different than you're used to

Need to collaborate on presentations with your team? Pitch is a Google Slides alternative that gets the job done. As far as decks go, Pitch includes all the beautifully-designed templates, customizability, and ease of use you expect from a top-notch presentation tool. But the app really shines when you add your team.

The right-hand sidebar is all about project management and collaboration: you can set and update the status of your deck, assign entire presentations or individual slides to team members, plus comment, react, or add notes. Save custom templates to make future presentations even easier and faster.

You can also invite collaborators from outside your company to work with you on individual decks. And if you opt for a paid plan, Pitch introduces workspace roles, shared private folders, and version history.

The "Go live" feature is a personal favorite—with just a click on the camera icon in the top-right, you can start a live video call. Any team members who open the presentation can hop in and collaborate in real-time. 

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; paid plans start at $8/user/month for additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best simple presentation app

Zoho show (web, ios, android, chrome).

Zoho Show pros:

Simple and easy to use

Version history and ability to lock slides

Completely free

Zoho Show cons:

Templates are pretty basic

If you're looking for a simple, yet capable presentation app that's a step up from Google Slides, Zoho Show is a great option. It's completely free to use, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates.

While the handful of "Themes" offered are on the basic side, Zoho templates boast a more modern and professional design than much of what Google Slides or PowerPoint offer. And I love that you can set the font and color scheme for the whole template, right from the start.

The app doesn't skimp on collaboration or shareability either. You can invite collaborators via email or shareable link, and comments and version history make it easy to work together on presentations. Once you're ready to share, you can even broadcast your presentation to a remote audience right from within Zoho. Plus, you can one-click lock slides to prevent any more editing or hide individual slides to customize your presentation for different audiences.

You can even connect Zoho Show to Zapier , so you can do things like automatically create a presentation when something happens in one of the other apps you use most.

Zapier is the leader in workflow automation—integrating with 6,000+ apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use interfaces, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more .

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Chatbot-like experience

Can still manually edit the presentation

Gamma cons:

Not as much granular customization

I tested a lot of apps claiming to use AI to up your presentation game, and Gamma 's generative features were head and shoulders above the crowd.

Simply give the app a topic—or upload an outline, notes, or any other document or article—approve the outline, and pick a theme. The app will take it from there and create a fully fleshed-out presentation. It's far from perfect, but Gamma produced the most useful jumping-off point of all the AI presentation apps I tested. 

Here's the key: Gamma is much more geared toward the iterative, chatbot experience familiar to ChatGPT users. Click on the Edit with AI button at the top of the right-hand menu to open the chat, and you'll see suggested prompts—or you can type in your own requests for how Gamma should alter the presentation.

Once you've done all you can with prompts, simply close the chat box to manually add the finishing touches. While you do sacrifice some granular customizability in exchange for the AI features, you can still choose your visual theme, change slide layouts, format text, and add any images, videos, or even app and web content.

Gamma pricing: Free plan includes unlimited users, 1 custom theme, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the Pro plan ("coming soon," as of this writing) for $10/user/month to get additional AI credits, advanced view analytics, custom fonts, and more.

What about the old standbys?

You might notice a few major presentation players aren't on this list, including OGs Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides. These apps are perfectly adequate for creating basic presentations, and they're free if you have a Windows or Mac device or a Google account.

I didn't include them on the list because the presentation space has really developed in the last several years, and after testing them out, I found these behemoths haven't kept pace. If they weren't made by Microsoft/Apple/Google, I might not even be mentioning them. They're pretty basic tools, they're behind the curve when it comes to templates (both quantity and design), and they don't offer any uniquely valuable features like robust team collaboration, branding controls, video, and so on.

Some of these companies (think: Microsoft and Google) are openly working on some pretty impressive-sounding AI features, but they haven't been widely released to the public yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll retest tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides to see what new features are available.

In any case, if you're reading this, you're probably looking for an alternative that allows you to move away from one of the big 3, and as the presentation platforms featured above show, there's a ton to gain—in terms of features, usability, and more—when you do.

Related reading:

8 Canva AI tools to improve your design workflow

The best online whiteboards for collaboration

How to share a presentation on Zoom without sharing your browser tabs and address bar

This post was originally published in October 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez. The most recent update was in May 2023.

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Kiera Abbamonte

Kiera’s a content writer who helps SaaS and eCommerce companies connect with customers and reach new audiences. Located in Boston, MA, she loves cinnamon coffee and a good baseball game. Catch up with her on Twitter @Kieraabbamonte.

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Best free presentation software of 2024

Find an alternative to PowerPoint

Best overall

Best for speed, best for functionality, best for collaboration, best user interface.

• How we test

The best free presentation software makes it simple and easy to create presentations as an alternative to subscribing to Microsoft PowerPoint.

1. Best overall 2. Best for speed 3. Best for functionality 4. Best for collaboration 5. Best user interface 6. FAQs 7. How we test

While PowerPoint is the market leader when it comes to presentation software, some people may be unwilling to subscribe to a Microsoft 365 subscription, especially if they don't expect to need to use it very often.

However, there are plenty of great alternatives to PowerPoint available for free that you can use. While these won't have the same advanced features as PowerPoint, they still offer a very competent platform to design most any presentation that you need.

To help you choose, we've listed below the best free presentation software currently available.

Add images to your presentations using the best free photo editor .

<a href="https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Google Workspace : Collaboration + productivity apps There are many different presentation software packages but Google Workspace formerly known as G Suite remains the original cloud office software and one of the best business office suites, offering a huge range of features and functionality that rivals can't match, especially when it comes to presentation software. <a href="https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Try it free for 14 days .

The best free presentation software of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Prezi turns the traditional approach to presentations on its head. Instead of creating slide after slide, this presentation software gives you a single giant canvas. You can add blocks of text or images, or even create miniature slides. During your presentation, you can seamlessly fly around the canvas and zoom in to look at individual chunks of content.

For how complex Prezi seems, it’s impressively simple to use the platform. The only major divergence from Microsoft PowerPoint is that you need to add animated paths from one part of the canvas to another. The tools for this are fairly straightforward, especially if you’ve ever used an animation or video editing software.

Of course, this type of presentation structure isn’t always ideal. Prezi makes it hard to visualize structured data like financials, which can make it difficult to use in business applications. Some viewers also might not appreciate the fly-around animation style that’s inherent to the presentation software.

Read our full Prezi review .

• ^ Back to the top

Canva is perfect for making speedy presentations right in your web browser. This software offers a handful of free layouts to help you get your slideshow started, and it’s easy to customize the templates to fit your needs. There isn’t a huge variety of content elements to add to your presentation, but Canva makes up for this with a searchable library of more than 1 million images you can use.

Your Canva presentations live online, which makes it extremely easy to collaborate. You can invite colleagues to edit your slideshow (although simultaneous editing is not supported) or seamlessly share your finished presentation. However, beware that Canva can’t import presentations from Microsoft Powerpoint or export finished work to a Powerpoint-editable format.

Read our full Canva review .

3. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and it includes a Powerpoint equivalent called Impress with nearly all of the same functionality. The only big difference you’ll find between the two slideshow creation tools is the LibreOffice lacks some modern features like built-in collaboration and integration with Microsoft OneDrive.

However, Impress does have a few advantages of its own. The software can import files from Keynote, the default presentation software on Mac computers. Plus, there are hundreds of free templates that you can download for free. Even better, there’s no limit on what fonts you can use with Impress, so it’s easy to change the look of your presentation from what Powerpoint typically allows.

On the whole, LibreOffice Impress is about as close as it gets to simply replicating Microsoft Powerpoint for free.

Read our full LibreOffice review .

4. Google Slides

Google Slides is part of Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), and it does a nice job of matching a number of PowerPoint’s capabilities. This free presentation software supports embedding videos, creating diagrams, and adding animations to your slides. While the selection of templates is somewhat limited, you can easily import hundreds of additional templates for free or create your own.

Even better, Google Slides supports the collaboration tools users have come to expect from Google. Multiple people can work on a slideshow simultaneously, and there’s a built-in group chat so you can keep track of what everyone is doing. It’s also nice that you can play your presentation in presenter mode, which allows you to preview how it will look to your audience and rehearse timing.

The only downside to Google Slides is that bloated slideshows can experience some loading delays. Also beware that while you can move between Slides and Powerpoint, the conversion often messes with the layout of your slides.

Read our full Google Slides review .

5. WPS Office Free

WPS Office Free is a Microsoft Office look-alike that fully support PowerPoint files without any layout issues during import. The WPS Presentation tool has all of the same capabilities of PowerPoint, including tons of animations, slide transitions, content effects, and video embedding. The selection of included presentation templates is also very impressive for a free software.

One of the best things about this presentation software is that the user interface will feel incredibly familiar if you’re coming from Microsoft. All of the tools are displayed in a top ribbon, with your slides shown on the left side of the screen for easy navigation. It’s simple to display your presentation right from WPS Presentation, which means there’s no unexpected troubleshooting when it’s time to show off your work.

There’s not much to dislike about WPS Presentation. However, keep in mind that the software is supported by ads. Some users find the ads annoying, but they’re not overly in the way.

Read our full WPS Office Free review .

We've also featured the best free office software .

Best free presentation software FAQs

Which alternative to powerpoint is best for you.

When deciding which alternative to PowerPoint to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require.

How we test the best free presentation software

To test for the best free presentation software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .  

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Michael Graw is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review. 

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The ULTIMATE Guide to PowerPoint Alternatives

• Written by: Olivia Kippax Jones
• Categories: Presentation technology

There’s an astounding number of PowerPoint alternatives out there claiming to be the solution to your most pressing presentation problems. But it can be tricky to see through the pretty branding and weigh up the functionality that lies beneath. Luckily for you, BrightCarbon is here to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the decent presentation programs from the rubbish PowerPoint knock-offs.

What is a PowerPoint alternative?

For the sake of this article, a PowerPoint alternative is software you can access from your computer or tablet that allows you to create presentations from beginning to end.

Why use PowerPoint Alternatives?

The number of PowerPoint alternatives available shows that people are willing to invest time and money in creating effective, attractive presentations and it’s clear that PowerPoint is not everyone’s first choice.

We at BrightCarbon think PowerPoint is great and use it for loads of incredible creation projects – check out our portfolio for examples . We also have lots of free resources to help you create gorgeous content in PowerPoint. However, we’re well aware of the horrors of “Death by PowerPoint” and are lucky enough to have a team of brilliant designers to help make our stuff look lovely. Maybe one of these PowerPoint alternatives is a better option if you don’t have a team of PowerPoint experts on hand. There are a lot of free PowerPoint alternatives here too – so if you’re looking to save some money you might be in luck!

Let’s see if the grass is greener over the proverbial fence. Feel free to skip ahead if you’re curious about one particular PowerPoint alternative.

Beautiful.ai

Custom show, google slides, libre office impress.

What is Beautiful.ai?

Beautiful.ai is an online presentation tool that automatically enforces presentation design ‘best practices’ using artificial intelligence.

Basic (free)

Pro ($12/month): All Basic features plus unlimited slides, no Beautiful.ai branding, analytics, revision history, PowerPoint export.

Organization (Coming soon): All Pro features and shared slide and asset library, single sign-on, brand control.

First impressions

Beautiful.ai looks good and it was easy to get started. Compared to other PowerPoint alternatives, Beautiful.ai has a smaller selection of templates/themes to choose from. Though they may look plain, things improve once you start adding content!

Creating slides

Once you’ve chosen a theme, you can edit the style by selecting a font, setting a colour palette, adding a logo and/or footer, and adding slide numbers. You can select how you want decorative elements, like headers and icons, to look and this is automatically applied to every slide in your deck meaning everything is consistent and you don’t have to edit each slide individually.

Within each theme a bunch of slide layouts are available, including charts, visualisations, and image-based slides. Once you’ve chosen a layout, clicking Variations brings up other design options for that layout.

The AI element comes in when you add or change elements – other parts of the slide automatically adjust. For example, if you change the background colour the text colour will automatically change so it remains visible.

There are no alignment tools, which would usually be a disaster because they help make sure all the objects on your slides are lined up properly. However, with Beautiful.ai, the AI does it all for you. You can easily switch elements around on a slide e.g. if you’ve got three icons and the labels are in the wrong place you can just drag and drop the text boxes and they will snap into place. In fact, it’s almost impossible to mess up (famous last words!).

Customisation

There’s a decent library of images and icons, but you can also import images from your computer or pull from other presentations you’ve created with Beautiful.ai. When you add an image, you can customise it in a few ways, such as adjusting the zoom, setting filters, and adding blur. You can also add audio from your own computer.

Text editing is limited. Because of the AI capabilities, increasing the font size in one text box changes the font size of every text box on the slide.

There are surprisingly detailed animation options for a program that does the design work for you – no complaints here! If you don’t want to deal with animations, Beautiful.ai will add simple transitions for you. However if you want to go further, you can set each object to appear on a click – great for live presenting – and you can change animation order and animation speed, as well as set the timings (overlapping, simultaneous or sequential).

You can’t choose what the animation effects (e.g. wipe, fade, fly in) actually are, they seem to be pre-set. Most objects animate in on a simple fade, although some graphs have specific animations.

Annoying things

• The AI doesn’t always get the design right. Sometimes objects are pushed too close to the edge of the slide and look odd.
• Widows and orphans are common and there’s no control over text wrapping.

If you have simple content, not much time, and want something that looks good then Beautiful.ai might be right up your street. It’s pleasant to use once you give up any idea of creative control and, if you know what you want on each slide, you can quickly pull together a deck that looks professional and modern.

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What is Canva?

Canva is an online content creation powerhouse enabling you to create everything from WhatsApp and Instagram stories, to Facebook covers, to presentations, to letters, flyers, invitations and more. We’re just testing out the presentation creation capabilities.

Free (free!)

Pro ($9.95 per month): Access to photo and element library, fonts, and priority support. Use unlimited folders, the brand kit, and create animations and GIFs.

Enterprise (~$30 per team member per month or custom):  All previous and storage, multiple brand kits, single sign-on, team folders, comments, templates, account manager.

With Canva you get access to a huge amount of assets: 2 million photos, 500,000 illustrations and icons, 20,000+ templates, 500+ fonts and so on. It’s a bit overwhelming!

Canva is template-based and there are lots of different styles to choose from. Each template contains a selection of slide layouts which you add to your deck using + Add a new page . You can also add blank slides to a presentation.

Editing these layouts is easy. Clicking on an element brings up a toolbar at the top of the screen showing the options for that object. The left-hand side menu shows the types of content you can add, this includes images, icons and shapes, and text. You can drag and drop content into your layout: when you do this with images, they are automatically resized and edited to fit the layout.

Smart guides help position elements accurately but there are also alignment tools if you want to get really precise. You can group objects which is handy for arranging and rearranging slides. There’s a bunch of grid layouts for adding photography, but you can’t overlay a grid on the slide. Read our grids and guides blog post to see why grids are so important to good design.

Like many PowerPoint alternatives, Canva is template-based which could be restrictive but these templates are very editable. If you have brand guidelines to follow you can create something on-brand by uploading custom fonts and logos and saving colour palettes and templates.

There are good text editing options – line spacing, letter spacing, font, font size – as well as pre-designed text templates you can pop right into your deck. Canva also has basic image editing options and swapping out images is super easy with the drag and drop function. However, graph editing is limited. For example, you can’t get rid of graph labels, titles etc. If you’re determined to jazz up your graphs there’s probably a workaround, but it’s not ideal.

Animation is available with Canva Animator – this is part of the Canva Pro option. The animations available are Rise, Bounce, Slide, and Fade. They are tricky to find; you have to start the process of downloading your presentation and then choose to download it as an Animation (MP4/GIF). You then get the option to add animations.

If you do animate your presentation you can only download it as a GIF or video file, not a click-through presentation. The animations are basic and inflexible and once you’ve chosen Bounce or Rise, that animation is applied to every slide – this gets very repetitive.

The animation options feel like they’re not designed for full length presentations but for bringing an essentially static web or social media graphic to life.

Nice things

• Collaborative working features
• Plenty of attractive charts
• Huge selection of background images, but not always very high quality
• Icon/illustration styles are mixed together, so achieving visual consistency is difficult. It would be great to filter by style.
• Slow to download – a four-slide presentation took seven or eight minutes!

We say you can use PowerPoint to create different types of content , and you definitely can, but if you’re not a designer and want to create party invitations, business cards or flyers – then Canva is your best bet. In terms of presentation creation, though Canva’s templates are attractive and editable, the lack of control over animation means Canva presentations are not viable for live presenting.

What is Custom Show?

Custom Show claims to be the only sales and marketing software that combines both slide storing and sharing options with a design-focused presentation builder. It’s a cloud app specifically designed for organizations of 10 or more employees and allows you to make instant companywide updates to your slide library, collaborate in real time, and present in person, on the web, or on an iPad. Custom Show offer training and support and will help design, organize, pilot and roll out content across your organisation.

Full disclosure – we haven’t had the opportunity to test out Custom Show. However, as it’s specifically aimed at the corporate community, whereas many PowerPoint alternatives are set up for individual users, we thought it should be included. If you’re looking for a presentation creation solution that’s specifically designed for businesses, it might be worth requesting a demo.

decktopus is an online presentation tool that claims to help users create great looking decks ‘in the shortest time’. Articles on the decktopus blog talk about simplicity as a key tenet of all good presentations. To help their users create simple slides, they provide a rapid creation tool with ‘restrictions that bring perfection’.

There are three decktopus  pricing tiers .

Pro (£9.90/mo): 1000s of design options, media libraries, online sharing and collaboration, export and share presentation options, embedding tool, voice recording, rehearsal mode and presentation tips.

Business (£19.90/mo): Everything in Pro, plus; embedded forms, custom domain connection, custom colours and font types, custom footer and analytics platform including email capture, dashboard and lead mail notification.

Enterprise (Contact for pricing): This option is for corporate plans with over 100 users. decktopus will find the right deal for you and your team.

When we first reviewed decktopus, there was a free version. However, today they have a 7 day no questions asked money back guarantee if you try it out and it’s not for you.

Decktopus has a similar set up to many PowerPoint alternatives I’ve tried out, you select a template from a bunch of predesigned options or start from scratch by picking a design style, then adding layouts.

In the main editing view, you can see all the slides in your deck. To edit a slide, you click on the ‘card’ (a preview of the slide plus an editor section), then edit the text and/or graphics. The changes are immediately reflected in the preview.

decktopus auto-adjusts the size and placement of text as you edit. There are a limited number of components and text permitted on each slide to ensure users don’t stuff the slides with content.

To get a better view of the slide preview, you can enter Focus Mode.

You can upload images from your computer or search the free stock image sites Unsplash and Pixabay from within decktopus.

As you can see in the video clip below, it’s really easy to swap the icons out, you simply search the bank and all the relevant icons pop up. All the icons are in the same design style which is great for making sure your slides stay consistent.

To create a new slide, you click Add Slide then select a slide layout. There are a good selection of visual slide layouts including a timeline, icons, and a statement number slide. They’ve also added some new layouts including diagrams, charts, graphs and tables.

You can also add your own images into mock-ups of different digital devices, which is great for showcasing things like websites, apps or e-learning modules. Unfortunately, you can’t use the in-built stock media search in these mock-up slides, the images have to be uploaded from your own PC.

You can drag and drop slides to rearrange the order of your deck and you can also drag and drop slide content in the editor section to change the order of icons or text points.

The customisation options in decktopus are pretty limited as the tool purposefully imposes restrictions to help users create well-designed decks. However, there are a few things you can play around with. In the Pro plan, you have the option to choose from a range of pre-selected colour schemes and fonts. This gives you the ability to switch up your deck without worrying about clashing colours or fonts that don’t fit well together. In the Business plan, you have access to this feature as well as the option to upload your own fonts and colours, allowing you to easily stick to your brand guidelines. You can also add notes and logos in the footer of your slides as part of the Business plan.

When you’re editing a slide, you can swipe left or right on the card to view alternative layouts and click Swap Colours to see alternative colour options within that design style. There isn’t a huge amount of variation on offer, but it helps to mix up the style of your slides a little whilst maintaining a cohesive colour scheme.

With both the Pro and Business plans you can also add voice over to your slides which is great for sending out a presentation for your clients to watch without you having to present directly to them. Recordings are only available when you present online or share your presentation as a link.

There’s no image editing, but you can zoom in and out of an image and select which bit to show which is a useful feature.

Sadly, there are no built-in animation or slide transition options in decktopus but you can export your presentation as either a PDF or a PPT file. This means it could be possible to add animation in PowerPoint after creating your initial deck in decktopus.

• The slide layouts have very little text and lots of white space, encouraging users to create easily digestible slides.
• You can view, play and create presentations on mobile.
• There’s a bank of videos on presenting ideal for nervous presenters.
• Undoing actions is not intuitive. You have to go to History and revert the action.

Decktopus is all about helping people create decks really quickly, without producing a messy, poorly designed collection of slides. The interface is intuitive and, if you already have your content planned out, you really could produce a visually appealing deck in a matter of minutes. It’s biggest limitation is the lack of animation, which reduces presentability. Decktopus are actively developing their offering and there are some exciting features in the works such as hyperlinking the ability to embed your deck on a web page and more!

What is eMaze?

eMaze is an online, template-based tool that helps users create presentations, websites, e-cards, blogs and more. It has 3D presentation building capabilities. There are 75 templates to choose from, collaboration options, and advanced editing tools.

There’s a confusing number of pricing options. Here are a few of them…

Pro Plan ($13 per month): Premium templates, multiple download options, custom effects, branding tools.

Edu Class ($40 per month for max 30 users): All Pro features plus lesson templates, custom templates, collaboration, control privacy settings.

Enterprise Plan ($452 per year max 20 users): All other features plus premium templates, branding, support.

eMaze uses a drag-and-drop editor and navigating the dashboard is simple. However, once you start to work with a template, eMaze isn’t super intuitive. The interface is okay, but tools aren’t where you might expect. It can be difficult to tell how big the slides are and whether objects are hanging off the edge as you can see in this clip.

You select a template or a blank presentation to start, and then add slides that have the layouts you want to use. eMaze templates come in two forms, 3D and 2D. The 2D templates look and feel like PowerPoint templates but with slightly fresher design. There are plenty of options and each template has lots of different slide layouts with a good selection of charts, timelines etc. (though there’s also a lot of space for text encouraging “Death by eMaze”!).

The 3D templates place the slides in a 3D space e.g. a gallery. The 3D templates might look cool, but you have little control over the movement of the deck and the transitions might give you motion sickness.

There are a few positive points, including good object alignment tools and the ability to lock and unlock elements. Currently, you can only lock and unlock elements in PowerPoint with the help of an add-in like our free design and productivity add-in BrightSlide .

eMaze has good text effects, for example, you can make text scrollable. Though not useful for a live presentation, this is great for a kiosk-style deck. There’s also decent text formatting and you can hyperlink both within and outside of the presentation.

You can alter the opacity of image and shapes, add custom colours and custom fonts and, under Brand in Settings , you can set theme colours, font and font styles, and formatting for charts and tables. This last feature helps ensure consistency if yo are creating more than one deck with this PowerPoint alternative. eMaze presentations can be translated into over 100 languages.

The animation options allow you to have animations play on a click, loop, hover, or timed. There are some fun transitions depending which template you choose.

The animation options are hard to find and, oddly, are under the same Fx menu as other special effects, like shadow or 3D. The real issue with grouping animation options and other effects together is that you can’t apply multiple Fx options to the same object. So, if your line is dashed or your image blurred you can’t apply any animation effects to it. This is a real oversight. There’s also no animation pane, so it’s hard to see what you’ve got happening on a slide.

Good things

• Can present offline
• Well set up for sharing content online e.g. users can add SEO information
• A potentially cool feature, the ability to upload and eMaze-ify your PowerPoint files, didn’t work with the animated deck or the simple bullets point deck we tested.

Looking at the eMaze Shared tab, what’s being produced by other users looks very much like PowerPoint with just a hint of Prezi. Both PowerPoint and Prezi are easier to use than eMaze and if what you end up with looks no different, why you would you use eMaze?

What is Focusky?

Focusky is desktop presentation software with a free cloud hosting service. They apply mobile friendly HTML5 technologies to help you create animated presentations. Focusky provides you with an unlimited canvas to add frames to and zoom and pan around.

Standard ($9.90 per month): All free functionality plus 100G storage, no watermark, premium templates, 720P export, limited offline viewing, custom templates, publishing in multiple formats, premium animation editor.

Professional ($99 per year): All previous and unlimited storage and uploads, HD export, unlimited offline viewing, animated and vector resources, 2 users.

Enterprise ($399 permanent): All previous plus more backgrounds, animated and vector resources, 10 users.

Focusky has a clunky interface and many of the templates look old fashioned. Similar to eMaze, Focusky has a few 3D layouts with less traditional transitions. The interface has everything on show and was very busy compared to some of the more pared back PowerPoint alternatives.

Focusky has a mixed bag of templates, some dated, some modern, so do a bit of digging before settling on a style. Loading up themes and fonts can take a while; though the software is stored on your computer, the templates are online, so bear in mind that you need an internet connection to get started.

The way Focusky works is that each slide is ‘slide-sized’ but you can zoom round the canvas in a nonlinear way. There are different frame layouts to choose from or you can start from scratch.

Focusky has some useful tools for creating slides, such as a grid you can toggle on and off, a ruler, alignment tools and group tools. The layouts have a pretty 90s feel and the assets in general are not as modern or impressive as some PowerPoint alternatives. There’s a variety of chart and smart art options, as well as 5000+ online royalty-free vector resources.

The templates and slides are highly customisable, very similar to PowerPoint but with the added 3D/Prezi-like zoom and pan functionality. You can record narration, change the screen ratio, add videos, images, and audio. You can also add interactions, such as clickable objects, triggers, and hyperlinks using the interactions designer.

There are lots of animation options, though many are similar to the worst of PowerPoint’s animations. Stick to Fade in, Fly in, and Bounce in, or use the Action Paths, Focusky’s answer to Motion Paths (get to grips with Motion Paths here ). Focusky’s Animation Painter is a great feature, you can copy animations from one object to another quickly.

• You can hide/show sections in show mode
• Screen recording capability
• Focusky uses Comic Sans font for its help tips. Need we say more?
• There were spelling errors in some of the help tips which doesn’t fill you with confidence.

• At some points Focusky was downright glitchy. For example, the animation options below.

Final thoughts

It would take a fair amount of work to create something spectacular in Focusky. It has lots of functionality true, but there are lots of sleeker PowerPoint alternatives out there.

What is Genially?

Genially helps people create digital resources with built-in interactivity including quizzes, games, and polls.

Pro (€7.49 per month): All free resources and offline viewing, premium templates, PowerPoint import, PDF and JPG download.

Master (€20.82 per month): All previous and brand personalisation, training, resource management, collaborative tools.

Team (€79.15 per month): All previous plus 5 Master users, training, design support.

An attractive interface with lots of different templates to play with. There are a few nice touches, like the animations playing when you hover your cursor over them.

There are lots of themed templates and, if you scroll to the bottom, the option to start with a blank deck. The layouts are similar to many PowerPoint alternatives, but the templates do come pre-animated which is great if you’re lacking animation confidence. (If you’re a PowerPoint user needing some animation tips, check out this blog post ).

Some of Genially’s suggested layouts have room for improvement – they leave loads of space to write text and, not to blow our own trumpet, our editable world map is better!

Alongside templates, there are lots of other resources like illustrations, icons, figures, maps, as well as predesigned elements like titles and subtitles that you can pop right onto your slide. There are also interactive elements, like buttons, that you can drag and drop.

The Interactive elements tab lets you add interactivity to your slides. You can link to another page/slide, add a link to a window in your browser, or add a text pop up. These features could be handy for creating more self-guided slides.

Though there’s no grid, there are smart guides and basic alignment tools – you can align to the slide (though only with the edges and centre not the middle) but not to other objects.

There are different levels of design control with Genially. For example, you can drag and drop pre-made interactive elements on to your slide or create your own from shapes. There’s also a specific designer mode. It takes a while to find (under the main settings menu) but allows you to precisely edit the size and position of objects, as well as the layers on a slide. Tucking these controls away works well, as the general user is not overwhelmed but those that want a little more control and information can access it.

In terms of customisation, you can change canvas size, there’s good text editing with customisable letter spacing, line height, fonts, font size, and more. You can also copy and paste text formatting which is super handy. The native icons and illustrations are fun but not editable, so are less useful for branded presentations. However, the paid version offers various brand personalisation options, so this issue can be resolved.

The image bank isn’t as good as some PowerPoint alternatives, but you can upload your own imagery (though you can’t crop them to shape). Content can be added from Twitter, Instagram, Google Docs, Pinterest, Instagram, Wikipedia and more. You can’t yet insert video files from your computer – but can embed videos from Vimeo and YouTube. There are no graphs – you might be able to insert graphs from one of the many plug-in options but there’s nothing in Genially itself.

A handy option is the ability to choose how your audience navigates through the slides: standard (clicking or pressing left and right), video (playing the whole presentation), or Microsite (all navigation through internal linking).

The templates come with pre-set animations which are fine if you don’t want to use animation to help tell a story. There are customisable animation options, though they’re limited compared to PowerPoint. There’s no animation timeline or way of easily seeing which elements are animated and which are not. Animations can be triggered by hovering your cursor over an object but not with a click which is what you want when you’re presenting in person.

Looks lovely, smooth transitions and animations, fun to play with, plenty of customisation and interactivity options – give Genially a go!

BrightCarbon does lots of work in Google Slides and, over the years, we’ve found there are definitely pros and cons to working with it.

For a really detailed look at Google Slides, head to our ULTIMATE guide to Google Slides .

What is Google Slides?

Google Slides is Google’s version of PowerPoint. It’s a cloud-based presentation tool that allows people to collaboratively work on a project and either present online or download a presentation to use offline.

When purchased under G Suite subscription, Business $10 per month: unlimited cloud storage, smart search, data loss prevention.

Google Slides has a bright, clean and intuitive interface. There are a few templates and though they’re simple, they’re easy to edit.

When designing slides, you can add grids and guides, can group and ungroup objects and use alignment tools to place objects precisely. If you want tips on creating presentations with Google Slides check out out this blog post on interactivity or this one on fonts !

Collaboration is super easy with Google Slides. Google Slides offers a variety of sharing options meaning you decide who gets full access. You can also tag people in comments, so they get an alert. You can sync slides across multiple decks meaning if you make updates to a specific slide in a specific deck, the changes will be implemented across other synced slides that sit in different decks. This is particularly handy if, for example, you have a slide containing data that you need to update regularly. This is all more stable and more comprehensive than the collaboration options offered by PowerPoint – so if working closely with your team is something you need to do regularly, then Google Slides could be perfect for you.

Slides has most of the same formatting options as PowerPoint. There are lots of shape editing tools – fill and line colour, border colour – you can add shadows and reflections and fine tune these effects. You can crop images to shape – an option missing from many PowerPoint alternatives. You can view and edit the slide master which means it’s easier to get consistent slide layouts and consistent design over multiple decks, and you can easily create templates. You can add hyperlinks to create interactive decks – check out our example here .

Options for editing GIFs are more advanced in Google Slides than PowerPoint. You can crop a GIF, recolour it, resize it, and much more without losing quality meaning you can create some really fun slides pretty easily. You also have access to hundreds of fonts through the Google Fonts library and it’s easy to insert content from your computer, the web, Google Drive, by URL etc. However, adding and editing custom graphics, such as vectors, is more difficult in Google Slides.

Google Slides’ animation features are fairly restricted (there are about 15 options). Though there’s no equivalent of the morph transition (a really cool animation option in PowerPoint 365) simple animations can still do a lot of heavy lifting. With Google Slides animation can be applied to text, shapes, objects, and slides. We recommend sticking to the more basic Google Slides animations, such as Fly in and Fade in, for a polished professional look.

• Very intuitive
• Easy collaboration
• Charts are difficult to edit as they are always live – which means they use data pulled from a Google Sheets document. This means that though they are super easy to create charts appear in Google as a non-editable image, which makes them difficult to customise.

Google Slides does lack some of PowerPoint’s more complex functionality but it is this learning curve that puts many people off PowerPoint in the first place. Slides is easy to use and really shines in the arena of collaborative working, so it’s no surprise that it’s a very popular tool for both businesses and individuals. If you want to learn more about Google Slides, we have loads of resources like these image editing hacks and this blog post on making the most of Google Slide’s animation features .

What is Haiku Deck?

Haiku Deck is a web-based presentation tool that focuses on helping users create simple slides accompanied by images. We have a full review of Haiku Deck on our blog too.

Haiku Deck feels pretty dated compared to many other PowerPoint alternatives. The default setting for slides is 4.3 which is a red flag – these days 16.9 is standard. Of course, if you’re using an older projector where 4.3 is required then this won’t be an issue, but it would be great to have the flexibility of multiple aspect ratios.

Pro ($19.99 per month or $119.88 per year): The Basic version plus unlimited decks, offline viewing, privacy controls, add audio, embed YouTube, branding, Zuru.

Premium ($359.88 per year): All previous plus analytics, live web playback, priority support.

Haiku Deck is incredible easy to use, it’s clear why it’s popular with educators and students. There are a handful of restrictive layouts; text and image placement is pre-set and not editable. You can choose from a selection of templates (templates set font and colours).

Zuru – available on Premium – is a tool which automatically creates presentations. We’re not sold on the idea of automatic presentation creation; a good presentation is all about story and over-reliance on AI is likely to result in a deck that’s just pretty images and bullet points which is rarely an effective strategy – read our blog post about this here .

That sums up the issue with Haiku Deck, regardless of whether you use Zuru or create slides yourself, you end up with some variation on full bleed images and short text points or statements. This isn’t necessarily bad slide design, but we find this type of slide tends to be just decorative and not do any of the heavy lifting with your story.

If you need to create slideshows with hyperlinks, videos, specific images, large amounts of information, etc. then this is not the platform for you. The decks are barely customisable. You just enter text and add images. The graph and statistic layouts look ok but are too restrictive – you can only have so much text or it gets cut off.

You can’t control font size or choose where text boxes are positioned. Typographic controls are non-existent, there are no kerning options, you can’t sub- or super-script text. You can record and add narration, add media and basic charts, and zoom in and out of images.

You can chose your background and font colours easily.

Haiku Deck are very proud of their access to 40M+ royalty free images. Keywords from your text content are used to pull images from this bank and you can easily insert them into your deck.

There are no animation options.

Nice Things

• Live Presentation mode – teachers can broadcast to student screens in their classroom or anywhere in the world.

Annoying Things

• It took a long time to load to view a small presentation.

There are glowing reviews for Haiku Deck online, but beautiful images do not an effective presentation make. It could be brilliant for school projects, but for your next sales pitch you might prefer something with a little more oompf.

What is Keynote?

Keynote is a presentation tool and forms part of Apple’s iWork suite. It can be used on Macs as well as iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.

Keynote is super streamlined and intuitive. There are around 30 themes you can pick from that are nice and clean.

The process of creating slides in Keynote is fairly similar to creating slides in PowerPoint. If you pick a theme, you can simply replace the placeholder text and graphics with your own words and images. Or you can start from scratch and add tables, charts, shapes, images, narration and video. You can ensure precise design with the rulers and alignment guides, drag and drop objects, create groups, lock objects and see a list of your objects in the Object List.

One criticism is that is can be hard to find some features in Keynote. In Keynote instead of having a ribbon – like in PowerPoint – you have a toolbar. You can customise it with the features you use most to make slide creation easier. Wish this was available in PowerPoint? Download our Quick Access Toolbar and customise it with your favourite PowerPoint tools.

Though it’s true that Keynote has fewer features overall than PowerPoint, you might not be able to create super complex sequences for example, the features that Keynote does have are realised to a polished level and bugs and glitches are rare.

You can export presentations to Microsoft PowerPoint and as PDF, QuickTime, HTML and image files.

Keynote has lots of the same customisation options as PowerPoint. A fun touch is that you can add illustrations and handwritten notes to your slides using Apple Pencil on your iPad. If you’re not artistically inclined, Keynote has over 700 customisable shapes, and you can easily edit them by tapping a shape and choosing Format then Style . You can also create Freeform shapes. You can add interactive charts, and Keynote has fully functional text and paragraph editing. You can import a variety of media files to make your slides more engaging.

You can save Keynote documents as PowerPoint files. Or import and edit PowerPoint documents directly in Keynote with most popular PowerPoint features supported. So, if you’re working on the same project as a PowerPoint user, it isn’t too tricky to collaborate.

Keynote’s animation engine is simple to use, though slightly more restrictive than PowerPoint – you can’t stack animations for example. Having said that, it has some really useful animation effects that you’re actually likely to use and fewer over-the-top options than PowerPoint. There are over 30 transitions and effects for objects and text. You can animate objects along a path using Apple Pencil or your finger on your iPhone or iPad.  Everyone has access to Magic Move, which is similar to PowerPoint’s Morph transition (only available in PowerPoint 2016). You can see a demonstration of Magic Move below:

• Real time collaboration; decks can be accessed on a Mac, iPad or iPhone
• With Keynote Live, audiences in many locations can watch you presentation in real time on a Mac, iPad, iPhone or the web
• Converting to Google Slides is not as easy as converting to PowerPoint
• There’s no scroll-wheel based zoom in/out shortcut
• You can’t hide objects

Keynote users really love this program, it’s easy to use and reliable. If you’re an Apple user Keynote is a great free PowerPoint alternative.

What is Libre Office Impress?

Libre Office is a free open source suite, compatible with Microsoft Office. Impress is its free PowerPoint alternative. LibreOffice is community-driven and developed software, and is a project of the not-for-profit organisation The Document Foundation .

Impress is very similar to PowerPoint in look and feel. If you’re a PowerPoint user, getting started will be very easy.

The process of creating slides is also similar to PowerPoint. Impress’s assets aren’t as sleek and modern as other PowerPoint alternatives; it all feels very 90s (but sadly not in a cool way)!

The templates on offer are fairly limited, even more so than PowerPoint, so if you’re looking for PowerPoint alternatives because you want nice templates then Impress isn’t for you. However, Impress slides are very customisable. Like with PowerPoint, a designer’s eye might be needed to make something that looks contemporary and professional.

You can import video and images, set your own custom colour palette. The graph options are great and can be edited within the file.

Though some of the animation options are dated there are plenty that are super useful, like motion paths, meaning you can create great animated slides. Animations can be triggered by clicks and you can add animations to individual elements. There’s no animation timeline, so it’s hard to know exactly what you’re doing with multiple animations on one slide.

• It’s free with no watermarks or Impress branding.
• Supports macros. This might not matter to the casual user but it’s great news for those a little more into their tech. Click here to learn more about the magic of macros in PowerPoint.
• PowerPoint files are (generally) compatible with Impress.
• You have to download the entire Libre Office suite to get Impress.
• It was a bit glitchy, for example when previewing animations.
• Conversion from a PowerPoint file to Impress wasn’t perfect. E.g. animations went awry and images looked less sharp.

If you want to use PowerPoint but don’t want to pay, Impress is an ideal free alternative.

What is Ludus?

Ludus describes itself as an advanced presentation tool for creative professionals.

Ludus has a clean, dark interface. They state on their website that they ‘don’t want to spend all [their] energy on providing the most advanced text editing tool, the most powerful image filters, or the most amazing transitions’, which suggests that the functionality of Ludus is limited. However, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Solo ($14.99 per month): All features and unlimited storage, unlimited presentations, one user maximum.

Team ($19.98 per month): All previous and minimum 2 users.

Special: Custom needs, custom price.

Ludus has fewer templates than many PowerPoint alternatives. Not a problem if you’re happy to create something from scratch, however, if you’re looking for PowerPoint alternatives with snazzy templates, this might not be for you.

Creating from scratch is made easier by smart guides and alignment tools. You can lock objects – a really handy feature meaning you don’t keep accidentally selecting a background image when you’re editing objects on top.  Ludus also lets you work with things in layers.

Almost everything has a keyboard shortcut clearly displayed at the bottom of the screen, so if you use Ludus regularly you could really build up speed.

There are a bunch of great features for customising your slides including text editing tools, adjusting letter spacing, line height, font size etc.

You can make icons editable objects meaning you can change the colour and outline. If you create elements that you’re particularly proud of, you can save them as Smart Blocks to your own searchable library which you can access when you’re creating presentations in the future.

A slight negative is that there are limited shape types and, though you can crop images, you can’t crop images to a shape. However, there are some really great image editing tools that set Ludus apart from other PowerPoint alternatives, and PowerPoint itself.

You can add hyperlinks to skip to different slides or external sites. There are a bunch of integrations with Unsplash, GIFy, Flickr, the Noun Project and more. Ludus is also linked to Google fonts giving you 800+ fonts at your fingertips.

11 slide transitions are available, and you can set the duration of the transition. However, you can’t animate individual objects. Ludus suggest using GIFs to add animated elements and say they are working on providing this functionality in the future. You can only view transition animations online, as presentations are exported as PDFs.

• Good collaboration options: sharable Smart Blocks, password protection, and custom URLS for sharing.
• Ludus can export to PDF, HTML, JPG, and PNG formats.
• You can only present an animated Ludus presentation online.
• Though you can choose e.g. font size you have to type in a number. There are no bigger/smaller arrows, so editing text was a bit time consuming.

It’s worth keeping an eye on Ludus. It’s being updated all the time in response to user requests, it has a few unique features and is pleasant to use. There is a 30-day free trial if you fancy giving it a go.

Paste by WeTransfer

What is Paste?

Paste was first launched in 2015 but has been recently acquired by WeTransfer who have just launched Paste 2.0. Paste 2.0 is billed as a reactive slide creator allowing users to drop content on the slides without having to fuss with formatting or layouts.

Free: 3 slide decks, custom branding, unlimited sharing.

Pro ($10 per month paid annually): Up to four members, unlimited slide decks, private slide decks, remove Paste branding.

Team ($30 per month paid annually): Everything with Pro plus up to 25 members and priority customer support.

Paste has special prices for education and NGOs on application.

First Impressions

If you sign up to Paste with a work email address, Paste automatically scans your company website to extract brand details. You can then choose to start your deck using a template or a blank project. Paste does its best to extract your brand colours and logo – it worked pretty well for me, but the colours are easily adjusted in the Brand Settings if it isn’t quite right.

There are only three templates to pick from – this was refreshing as some PowerPoint alternatives have what feels like hundreds of templates! Whichever you chose, Paste provides a short, guided tour through the various features which was helpful.

Overall, Paste was smooth, clean and nice to work in.

Creating Slides

The reason there are so few templates in Paste is that, rather than plugging your content into an existing structure, the slide reacts to your content to create a suitable layout. It’s easy to add and remove content such as text and images from slides and the slides themselves are split into columns which you can add or remove.

You can insert images from Unsplash and GIFs from Giphy – Paste will predict the type of images you need based on the content you already have.

You can also upload images from your computer and media can be pulled in from a huge variety of websites and apps. You can then move slides to adjust the layout; text and media resizes automatically.

You can’t add tables, graphs or charts which is a shame. Obviously, you can save these as images and add them that way but using images means editing the data is a huge faff.

Paste has ‘Power Layouts’ which let you select a simply layout to add your content to. You can then add and drag content around until you’re happy with it. This is an example of a 3 column power layout:

Alternatively, you don’t have to pick a layout, you can just drag files to Paste from your computer and it will arrange them in a grid.

A feature I can see being used very heavily is the media holders. These allow you to add images or video into really lovely phone or tablet holders. They look great and you can even add a 3D effect, so they react to your mouse when you’re presenting. These are great for showing websites, YouTube videos, app mock-ups and more.

One feature that needs a little work is auto colours. With this setting on, the background is meant to react to the colour of images you add. This didn’t work as automatically for me as I expect – I had to go and select auto colour again each time.

You can export Paste presentations as PDFs or embed them into web pages.

Paste will automatically add your branding to each slide preventing your team from using the wrong colours or fonts. There is some text formatting; bold, italic, bullets, numbers, and a checklist. You can set text size to small, medium and large – not as much range as I’d like but it keeps things simple and helps ensure consistency across slides. You can set the style and font for each of these levels (small, medium and large) in Brand Settings.

You can also add a logo and text watermark.

A good feature Paste has is that you can edit all slides at once. If you want to change background colour or slide layout on every slide or a selection of slides you can. This is a time saver and will help you update decks quickly.

Sadly, there is no animation in Paste. Even the ability to make each column fade in on a click would add a lot of value. You could ‘hack’ this by duplicating slides then deleting content, so it looks like a slide is building in but this would be quite time consuming.

• Good collaboration features, you can leave comments, assign slides to team members and respond to content with reactions.
• It was hard to delete the media holders

Paste could be great for very media rich decks that are mainly images, screenshots, or video.  It allows users to quickly create brand complaint good-looking content for swish follow ups to an online meeting or training session. There are also some great portfolio examples on the Paste Explore page. The lack of animation means that there are better options than Paste for creating in-person or face-to-face presentations.

What is Powtoon?

Powtoon is a video and presentation tool that comes with lots of ready-made templates. Though there are lots of video options, let’s stick to exploring the presentation creation tools. We’ve reviewed Powtoon before, check it out here .

Pro ($19 per month): 5 premium exports per month, access to pro and free content, 2 GB storage.

Pro+ ($59 per month): Unlimited premium exports, unlimited access to content, 10 GB storage.

Agency ($99 per month): All previous and 3 rd -party reseller rights, 100 GB storage, upload custom fonts.

Powtoon’s interface is a bit overwhelming. There are lots of moving parts, it’s very bright and quite distracting. However, Powtoon’s focus on animation, movement, and storytelling is missing from many other PowerPoint alternatives and is great to see.

It might take you a while to get started, there’s definitely a learning curve with Powtoon. Though a designer – or at least a Powtoon expert – could create stunning presentations, the rest of us might struggle if we decided to go it alone without using one of the pre-made templates.

Using Powtoon’s templates can help you get professional looking results. There’s a large selection of media, templates, and animation effects to choose from.

Once you’ve chosen a template, you can choose different ‘looks’ – infographic, cartoon, real – then Powtoon shows you assets that are consistent with that style. This helps you create something that looks cohesive. There are some really great assets you can pick from to give slides a bit of flair.

There are a few frustrating quirks, for example, it’s difficult to select objects if they overlap. However, there is a handy grid you can toggle on and off to help with object placement.

There are two levels of editing, edit and create . The former is more basic, allowing you to edit text and colours, swap out illustrations etc. The latter is a more detailed editor where you can access extended functionality like the animation timeline.

When changing the size of objects, both the width and height change proportionately which isn’t always what you want. The charts are a bit rubbish.

You can supposedly import PowerPoints into Powtoon. Adding some of Powtoon’s animated assets to a PowerPoint deck could be great, but this feature needs more work. You have to do a lot of editing to deal with the fact Powtoon can’t really cope with a PowerPoint file – particularly with layers as you can see in the clip below!

There are 12 animation options. It was a bit fiddly to work out how to add and place animations on the timeline. Though Powtoon says this is presentation creation, you can’t trigger animations with a click – you have to set timings instead. This is great if you want to share a copy of your deck as a video but it would be difficult to present a Powtoon live. You can see the timeline below.

• Regularly refreshed assets, for example the range of ethnicities of the cartoon figures has been recently updated.
• Powtoon is a heavy product and might make your computer work hard.
• Uploading images and videos is slow and once you’ve got the files uploaded you can’t name them, so if you put a lot of content on Powtoon it can be difficult to put your hands on what you need.

Powtoon presentations can have a cartoony feel which is difficult to achieve in PowerPoint. Their pre-animated assets – like characters – make it easy to achieve effects which would take a long time to create elsewhere. If that’s the look you’re going for Powtoon is great, otherwise it might not be worth learning how to use it.

Full disclosure , we’ve not always been huge fans of Prezi . However, one thing we can get behind is their passion for storytelling and Prezi certainly talks the talk when it comes to visual design. They claim that Prezis are more effective than PowerPoint . Let’s see how they measure up.

What is Prezi?

Like many PowerPoint alternatives, Prezi is designed for people who aren’t designers. The major differentiator is that instead of slides organised linearly, every part of a Prezi exists in a single space – on a huge blank canvas – which can be explored in a different sequence every time. Prezi call this ‘conversational presenting’.

Prezi Classic presented its users with a complete blank canvas. Prezi Next, launched in 2017, is more structured, limiting the ways users can organize their presentation by automatically programming the path taken from section to section. This path progresses by the pans and zooms that are characteristic of a Prezi presentation. For a more detailed introduction to Prezi, watch this video from the Presentation Guild .

There are pricing options for individuals, business users, and educators. Here is a selection:

Standard (£7 per month): Unlimited presentations, import PowerPoint slides, advanced privacy options.

Plus (£19 per month): All previous and premium images and icons, PDF export, offline presenting.

Premium (£59 per month): All previous plus analytics and online training.

Teams: Custom needs, custom pricing

Prezi Next is template-based and there are lots of modern and attractive templates available. If the reason you’re considering ditching PowerPoint is that the templates leave a lot to be desired, then Prezi’s templates are a real bonus.

One problem with Prezi being so template based is that once you start trying to change things it is quite easy to mess a template up. You can build a Prezi presentation from scratch though, as with PowerPoint, a little practise is needed.

It’s pretty easy to get started with a template, you just type into the text boxes, drag and drop elements, and all the movement/transitions are set up for you.

There are two ways to organise your presentation, planet or stack, narrowing down the ways you can move around the presentation. This is useful, making it less likely you’ll get confused or lose your place when presenting. The path is set and zooms from the overview to the topic, then to any subtopics then back out again. The topics add structure which is helpful for both presenter and audience.

In general, the functionality of Prezi is quite limited. Here are a few examples:

• Image editing – can’t crop and if you chose a background image, you can’t move it around.
• Lack of information about your slides e.g. what font size the text is or what the line thickness is. It’s difficult to ensure consistency.
• Can’t hyperlink
• No alignment tools.
• Can’t swap out one object for another easily e.g. if you want to change a straight line to an arrow or swap an image with a different one, you have to manually switch them out, meaning your layout could be ruined.
• Video playback – can’t edit the thumbnail or play without going full screen.
• No colour picker options.

It’s difficult to create branded content though you can send Prezi brand guidelines and they’ll create templates for you.

On the positive side, because of the canvas approach, it’s possible to create something that stands out and doesn’t feel like a typical PowerPoint. It may also encourage people to think more creatively about how they lay out and present their content. There are also some great assets, such as these lovely shape options.

A recent addition to Prezi Next is the animations tab. Though the options are still fairly limited – you can fade in and out and zoom – being able to stagger content makes Prezis much easier to present and helps the presenter tell their story more effectively. Then you have the famous Prezi pan/zoom transitions as you move around your content.

If you want the pan and zoom effects without switching to Prezi, check out SlideRide .  

• Great features for business users: smart branding, offline access, presenter view, voice over, PDF export, Prezi analytics, real-time collaboration.
• Mobile app for sharing Prezis via tablet.
• Non-linear presentations can be difficult to navigate.

We always recommend practising your presentation, but this is even truer with Prezi. You need to know the path you want to take through your content and the different options available to make the most of the conversational presenting options.

If you’re looking for a simple PowerPoint alternative, then Prezi might not be the answer. There is a learning curve, especially if you want to branch out from the pre-made templates.

You may want more functionality than Prezi offers but there’s no doubt people do create visually engaging and attractive Prezis and it’s certainly worth giving it a go to see if it suits you.

What is Slidebean?

Slidebean is presentation software powered by artificial intelligence. The system analyses your content, then makes design decisions without human intervention. Slidebean claims to be “The first truly AI-powered presentation software”.

Starter ($96 per year): 15+ starter templates, collaboration options, privacy setting, export to PDF and HTML.

Premium ($228 per year): All previous and 120+ premium templates, analytics, branding options, 2 people max, priority support.

Slidebean’s UI has two separate sections, one for design ( Design ) and one for content ( Outline ). Design should be influenced by content, so this separation could be bad news.

You can pick a template or start from scratch and content can be added in either the Outline or the Design panels. Slidebean will design the deck around the content if you chose ‘arrange with AI’. You can cycle through different layout options or move elements around the slide yourself.

Slides are built by adding Content blocks. These include text, quotes, photos, video, audio, charts and graphs and more. There is also a native image bank.

Depending on how much you care about design, you can have a completely hands-off approach or use the design panel to change images, icons, text size and style. You can add and remove content blocks, and when you move content blocks around the slide a grid appears to help you place them neatly.

You can’t alter the colour of individual objects, but you can change the colour palette. Restricting users’ use of colour is a good way of making sure the design stays looking good. However, it is frustrating that you can’t alter the colours on a chart. Apart from this, the chart and graph options in general are good and it’s easy to edit the data.

Lots of customisation options common in other PowerPoint alternatives – like typography or detailed image editing – are not available in Slidebean but the whole point of the app is that you don’t have to do any designing, so it makes sense that options are limited.

You can alter the animation order really easily by dragging and dropping under the animation tab. Each block is numbered on the slide so you can easily see what the current order is. Objects animate in on clicks which is great for live presenting – however, you can have the whole slide animate automatically. The animation options themselves are super limited, basically everything has the same animation.

• Slidebean is linked to Unsplash, the Noun Project, and GIPHY so you can use content from these sites on your slides.
• Limited colour editing options with icons.

Out of the many PowerPoint alternatives we tested, Slidebean is one of the only ones that really doesn’t require any design expertise to use but still turns out modern, sleek slides that could actually be used in an effective presentation. You can try it out for free, then upgrade to share and present.

What is SlideMagic?

SlideMagic is a web app aimed at the business community that allows users to make presentations in their web browser. Presentations can be delivered from the browser or converted to PDF or PPT files.

We first reviewed SlideMagic back in its beta phrase, now SlideMagic 2.0 is in beta.

SlideMagic has a pared back interface. The ‘Getting started with SlideMagic’ deck shows that super simple slides and large images are the name of the game.

SlideMagic is built around grids. You can change the number of columns and rows, but content can only be added within the confines of the grid. We’ve talked elsewhere on the blog about the importance of creating a good grid , and though it is restrictive, the emphasis on the grid means that SlideMagic decks are well balanced.

This emphasis on simplicity is felt throughout the application. Each presentation has just one accent colour paired with black and white. You can colour pick an accent colour from an uploaded image or enter RGB values. You can create your own layout from the grid or select a pre-made layout.

It would be great if you could drag and drop elements on the slide to easily edit the layouts. As it stands, the process of creating slides is a bit laborious.

SlideMagic is one of the most restrictive PowerPoint alternatives we looked at. On one hand, there’s less chance of messing up but on the other there’s little opportunity for creativity. A slight negative is the 4:3 slide size – this can look dated on more modern projectors or screens, though it looks like SlideMagic 2.0 has a 16:9 option.

There are basic image editing tools, such as black and white and blur, but it would be nice to have more control over, for example, how much blur is applied to an image.

There are serious colour restrictions. The background must be either black, white or the accent colour – though you can upload a background image so there are ways to bring more colour to your slides. You can’t edit graph colours. There’s no image/symbol/icon library, everything has to be pulled in as an image file.

There are a few useful editing tools, for example, you can select multiple objects and make simultaneous edits, and there’s a nice little button called Harmonise format  which standardises all text boxes to the same sized font and text placement. Great time saving tools.

There are no animation or transition options.

• Convenient speaker note/handout options
• Uploaded images saved into a library
• Presenter view
• No animation options!

Though SlideMagic’s strict grid format takes a bit of getting used to, it could be useful for non-designers. Hopefully its somewhat dated layouts are addressed in version 2.0.

What is Slides.com?

Slides is a suite of modern presentation tools, available in your browser. It prioritises collaborative working and is the only PowerPoint alternative we saw that has offerings for developers.

Lite ($5 per month): Unlimited private decks, present offline, export to PDF.

Pro ($10 per month): All Lite features and unlimited storage, 3 collaborators, custom CSS, Google analytics.

Team ($20 per month): All previous plus unlimited collaborators, custom branding, theme editor, shared media library and slide templates, clone decks, priority support.

The Slides interface is nice and simple, it’s easy to get started and the menus are arranged logically.

The default for Slides.com is to start your deck from scratch rather than using a ready-made template. The slide layout options are pretty basic, though once you’ve created your own slides, you can save these as layouts and use them again. The main menu shows everything you can put on your slides: Text, Image, Video, Shape, Line, iFrame, Table, Code and Math.

Creating slides is made easier with a grid and smart guides you can turn on or off. Not being able to zoom in or out whilst editing is a bit irritating.

Slides has lots of customisation tools, click on an object to bring up a menu of options showing how it can be edited. For a shape this includes colour, size, hyperlinking, animation, depth on the slide. For text, customisation options include line height, letter spacing, colour, opacity, padding, rotation linking, animation – you can also directly edit the HTML.

There is a customisable editor you can load with your company’s assets and colour themes to pull from again and again – a real timesaver. You can also build up your own media library with images, videos and slide templates. You can save any slide as a template and your team can have access to a shared library of slide templates.

Slides doesn’t have as many assets as some other PowerPoint alternatives. There are tables but no charts or graphs. However, you can embed content from YouTube, Vimeo, Maps, Unsplash and GIPHY and upload your own media and video content.

There are several slide transitions and you can break a slide into multiple “fragments” to reveal it step-by-step. You can control how each step animates and you can set the duration and delay of animations. You can animate individual objects, but you can’t add multiple animations to the same object. Animations can be triggered automatically, with a click on a specific object or with a hover over. This works great for kiosk-style or online presenting, but not so much for live presenting.

The animation options are certainly not the worst, and it looks like they’re being developed as we speak.

• Version history and roll back
• Collaboration options: comments, feedback and notifications
• Slides is the only presentation tool with a fully open source format. Your presentations are HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You can gain access to your presentation’s full source code and there are rich customisation options using CSS.
• No pre-made slide layouts to help create slides.

Slides.com would be great for kiosk-style presentations and for those wanting coding options. It is thoroughly inoffensive.

What is Microsoft Sway?

Microsoft Sway is another piece of presentation software from Microsoft – it’s aimed at those wanting to produce interactive presentations and content that doesn’t need a presenter. Sway is more streamlined than PowerPoint – a lightweight, cloud-only, storytelling application.

Free for anyone with a Microsoft account, premium features enabled with an Office 365 work or school account.

Sway is easy to use – it’s set up for non-designers, helping you put your content front and centre. It offers three different layout options: vertical, where the slides scroll through like a webpage; horizontal, where slides scroll sideways; and Slideshow, which is most like PowerPoint.

Though there are not many templates, those that exist come with nice built-in transitions which help presentations flow well. They feel more like a single piece of content than a series of slides. This effect would be hard to produce without a good understanding of PowerPoint animations.

Similarly to Slidebean, there are two views in Microsoft Sway. The Storyline panel, where you can add written content, and Design view, where you can see what your Sway looks like. Edits can be made in either view, and extra content added via easy drag and drop content cards.

The editing set up is very different to PowerPoint. Sway offers design and content suggestions based on what is already on your slides. For example, if you enter a topic, Sway will generate a presentation with images, definitions etc. related to this topic already inserted. Time will tell how useful this actually is. Technology like this is found in many PowerPoint alternatives and will only get more powerful in the future.

Because of the Storyline/Design split you can’t see your edits in real time. If you’re used to PowerPoint, or even one of the PowerPoint alternatives mentioned in this article, you might not like having to constantly click through to the preview mode to see what’s your end product will look like.

Sway is designed primarily for simplicity. But it’s just too simple. The colour options for the built-in layouts are a bit naff.

When you add text, it’s just displayed on a white background, very dull. Complex layouts, animations, and sequences are not possible. In fact, you have very little control over slide design at all, instead you relinquish it into the hands of algorithms. You can’t edit images within Sway or choose where text and images are placed on the slides.

You can easily embed web content, such as tweets, maps, and videos. You can’t create charts or other types of data visualisation directly within Microsoft Sway, but you can embed charts, documents, and more from other sources. This seems more effort than it’s worth when many other programs offer native graph and chart capabilities.

You can make minor changes to the way text and images appear. For example, you can choose the focus of an image so Sway knows which bits it should ensure the viewer can see.

Headings can be emphasized and accented. Large blocks of text can be bulleted or numbered (death by PowerPoint anyone?). All can be linked to external URLs.

Transitions are automatically generated within the templates. Individual objects cannot be animated.

• The layout automatically changes depending what device is being used.
• Online only.
• Sway’s can’t be shared as a file, so collaboration requires people to have access to the same account if they want to make edits.

To a presentation expert, Microsoft Sway doesn’t really appeal. It could be a great option for personal projects, like a photography portfolio or jazzing up a report or newsletter. But it’s too simple for much else. The end products are more like online magazine articles than engaging presentations.

What is Venngage?

Venngage is an information design platform that provides a range of customisable templates to help people communicate information easily and clearly, without the need for a graphic designer.

Free – a restricted selection of templates, charts, icons and export options.

Premium (USD 19 per month per user) – a few more features, including unlimited designs, additional templates, charts, icons and export options, as well as email and chat support.

Business (USD 49 per month per user) – additional features, including specific brand customisation, more templates, charts, icons and export options, as well as the ability for team members to collaborate on projects in real time.

Enterprise (custom pricing) – further options, including custom templates and account support.

Venngage seems to be predominantly geared towards creating infographics but also offers a huge library of templates for other formats, including presentations, newsletters, social media and brochures. You can filter formats according to the type of content you want to create. So, within the presentation category, you can choose between ‘pitch deck’, ‘keynote’, ‘business’, ‘creative’ or ‘engaging’ templates. There aren’t lots of templates to choose from if you’re using the Free plan, but many more are included if you upgrade.

Creating a presentation using Venngage is fairly intuitive. Once you’ve chosen a template, a tutorial pops up providing a basic walk-through of the tool’s features. This is useful if you’re not a designer, or if you haven’t used Venngage before.

Editing your template is straight-forward. It’s easy to toggle between pages in your presentation, add, duplicate and delete pages, and add speaker notes using the page manager and toolbar on the right-hand side. And you can use grids, margins, smart guides, grouping and alignment tools to help you set out, layer and distribute content neatly – yay!

Changing your slide background is also simple: you can either choose a colour from the template’s theme swatches, use a different colour, or add an image.

Navigating Venngage’s extensive photo library is straightforward thanks to the keyword search function. You can also upload your own image and drag and drop it onto the slide. (It isn’t possible to copy and paste an image from a website or another program, though – you have to upload it first, which is a bit cumbersome.)

Imaging editing is super easy and more extensive than some other PowerPoint alternatives – you can crop, resize, apply a shape, rotate and adjust the opacity using the editing toolbar. There aren’t any options to blur images or add filters, though. This functionality would be useful if you want to use images as a slide background.

Venngage’s icon library is also extensive and includes flat and outline icons (these can be edited) and multicolour icons (these can’t). A great feature is that you can add icons to your favourites, which makes finding them again faster.

Pre-designed text placeholders are available in Venngage’s library, ready to be customised. Updating the font, colour, size and line spacing with the editing toolbar is quick but harmonising font styles across multiple slides is time-consuming as there is no format painter tool , which means each font change has to be made manually.

There are lots of chart options to choose from, including line charts, bar charts, scatterplots and pie charts. You can use the editing pane to customise your data, adjust your chart’s colours, and toggle between settings to choose which chart elements you’d like to include. There are way more chart and graph features available than in many similar tools we’ve reviewed – impressive!

Adding interactive content such as YouTube videos, polls and forms is also possible, although there are no voiceover or audio options available.

Lastly, Venngage’s new My Brand Kit feature offers Business members the option to customise templates using their own brand style. You just enter your website address and Venngage extracts your company’s brand colours, logo and fonts. You can also do this manually. This would be valuable if you want to make sure your branding is consistent across multiple projects.

Venngage has no animation options, which means content remains static – this is fine for infographics, but not ideal for presentations. This is such a shame as we love some of the other features!

A user-friendly and intuitive interface and loads of template options!

The free version of Venngage doesn’t have an export function – you can’t download your presentation unless you upgrade to Premium. Premium users can export files as PNGs or PDFs, and Business users can export files as interactive PDFs, or to PowerPoint.

Venngage is best suited to static content such as infographics or handouts and has plenty of easy-to-edit templates to help you freshen up your content. It’s less suited to dynamic content like visual presentations as it doesn’t have any animation options. These would help a presenter keep their audience engaged by breaking slide content down into manageable chunks and pacing the flow of information.

What is Visme?

Visme is an online tool that allows its users to produce presentations, infographics and more. Its purpose is to help people create beautiful visuals without having to tackle complicated design software.

Visme have individual, business and education pricing options. This is the business pricing structure:

Basic (free): 5 projects, 100MB storage, JPG download, public projects.

Single ($25 per month): Unlimited projects, 10 GB storage, HTML5 download, slide library, privacy controls, folders, brand kit, record audio.

Team ($75 per month): All previous and 3 users, 10 GB storage per user, share projects and folders, set permissions.

Enterprise: Custom

Visme has a library of good-looking templates – a handful come with the free version and there are loads more available if you upgrade. Within each template you can select from a bunch of slide layouts – agenda slides, timelines, maps, charts and graphs and more.

To start you select a template and then chose which slide layouts you want to use. There are plenty of graphics to choose from, you don’t have to create your own graphics, icons, or charts. Their map slide is great – each country is named, and you can show or hide countries and change the colour.

Show object list brings up a selection pane. Here all the objects on a slide are listed, you can show, hide, and lock objects. You can also re-name them, a super handy feature if you have lots of elements of the page.

Clicking on the burger menu in the top left, gives a range of options. If you click view options, you can turn on a grid and even customize it to your own measurements. Also under the burger menu are options to change canvas size and add presentation notes. The presentation note feature could do with a bit of work: you get a pop-up window to type your notes and you can drag this around the screen but there is nowhere easy for it to pop up and down from. You have to exit and go through the burger menu to get it back, which seem a bit of a faff.

Visme has way more functionality than PowerPoint alternatives like Prezi Next. There’s all the align tools you need, the ability to change font size, swap out icons, and more. There are good customisation tools, such as text kerning and line spacing to help you create something really personalised.

Shape and image formatting are locked when you first add an object but can be unlocked. This is a great way of making the program accessible to people with less design confidence (if you don’t unlock objects it’s much harder to mess up your template) whilst allowing those who want it, more granular control. Image editing is available with a selection of filters and cropping.

Visme has some useful and simple data visualisation tools you can use in combination with their icon library. You can’t represent really complex data but it’s fine for simple facts and figures – check it out here .

If you want to make sure your presentation is on-brand you can save fonts and colour palettes within Visme.

The animations available are limited; objects can fly in and out from various places, pop, and fade. Though you can set what times objects enter, there’s no option to have them triggered by a click. This restricts live presentations but would work fine for self-running presentations.

Under the Show objects list, you can click show timeline and up pops an animation pane – hallelujah! Here you can see all the animation timings and drag things around to edit animation order. This functionality is great, why it is so hidden!?

• Handy intro videos help you get to grips with Visme
• Some features are difficult to find.
• You have to ungroup groups to edit individual objects within that group.
• 30-slide maximum

Visme slides look like PowerPoint slides. This isn’t a bad thing at all, but if you’re looking to break away from the PowerPoint look, then Visme isn’t it. Visme does offer modern, sleek layouts, easy drag and drop slide creation and some lovely templates.

What is Xtensio?

Xtensio is a cloud-based platform designed to help people create sales, marketing and strategy content. Xtensio began as a tool for start-ups but has evolved into a larger ‘toolbox’ with interactive templates intended to be of use during all stages of a company’s growth.

Free: 3 Folios. You have to pay to download Folios with the free plan but can share live web links.

There are a bunch of pricing options grouped under Individual, Business and Education. Here’s a selection:

Individual Plus ($15 per month paid yearly): 20 Folios, one user, download as PDFs and PNGs, link privacy control, create and share custom templates.

Business Team ($120 per month paid yearly): Unlimited Folios, 4-10 users, password protected links, customised links, Folio stats, 6 month data retention, collaboration and team management options, brand management options.

Agency ($500 per month paid yearly): Everything in Team plus 20 users, 12 month data retention, upload custom fonts, dedicated custom success manager and some advanced admin features.

Education Students and Educators ($40 per semester): 20 Folios, private links, PDF and PNG exports, one user, create and share custom templates.

Xtensio is a bit similar to programs like Sway (but with more features) as you build your project – called a Folio – using content blocks. It’s easy to get going and there are video tutorials and How-to guides if you’re not sure where to start.

The content blocks seem fairly comprehensive. They include text, a couple of charts, images, and videos alongside more web-friendly features like an email form and social media links.

There are lots of well-structured templates tailored to business communication e.g. customer profile, case study, proposal and more.

The templates immediately reveal one downside of Xtensio presentations, they are not at all animated. The finished product feels more like a scrollable website than a presentation – something to bear in mind when deciding which PowerPoint alternative is best for you.

In Xtensio you can create a custom template from scratch by selecting a blank Folio. When you’re happy with what you’ve done you can save it as a custom template. Alternatively, pick from one of the many templates on offer.

If you’re using the blank template, expect to spend a fair amount of time working out what you can and can’t do. It’s easy to add and remove content blocks (or modules) but getting them to sit where you want takes a bit more time. The drag and drop didn’t function in the way I expected as it only allows you to swap one module’s position with another rather than drag and drop the module to where you want it to sit on the canvas.

However, a slight learning curve is to be expected.

You can add images and video from your PC or from an URL and those images can be hyperlinked. You can insert tables and use some basic formatting features. There aren’t any alignment features, but these aren’t really necessary as all the content blocks sit on a vertical grid.

Opening up a pre-made template and editing it is very easy. You can simply type in your content, swap out the images and delete any parts of the template you don’t need.

One of the content block options are called canvases. These are clickable modules that open full-screen and are made up of other modules. You can use these to have more control over the grid/layout of modules Xtensio has pre-made canvases for user personas and business models.

Side note: You can view some sections of your Folio in Code View – if that’s your jam.

Folios can be exported as PDFs or PNGs or shared with clients and colleagues as responsive, live web pages.

There’s a decent amount of text formatting (font size, bold/italics/underlined, font, heading styles etc.) and if you’re creative you can use it to create something that looks good and is consistent across different projects. With a paid subscription you can add and manage fonts and chose your own colours (either with an eyedropper or using HEX codes) then lock these to create a consistent style guide.

You can set a background image or colour to visually break up the content. It would be great to have some basic image editing options e.g. transparency or colour editing to help bring images into line with your chosen style. At the moment image editing is non-existent but you can edit the colours and values of tables, charts and graphs.

There are great collaboration features and you can customise access levels to suit your needs.

There are no animation features. You can’t “present” Folio’s as much as scroll through them.

• Changes automatically save and sync across all devices and you can view revision history and revert to older versions.

• Password protection
• Xtensio reviewers like the fact that the templates – user personas, business models etc. – encourage them to think through their business plans/goals and organise their thoughts effectively. We know that knowing your business’s story and fully understanding what you offer over your competitors is key to a successful pitch so it’s great to see Xtensio helping their users work through these important questions.
• The undo feature doesn’t always undo actions in the way you’d expect.

I can see Xtensio being useful for non-designers who want to quickly and confidently create brand-compliant collateral such as one pagers, visually appealing reports, business plans, employee handbooks etc. The kind of content audiences consume at their own pace. Xtensio Folios could also make impressive leave-behinds or follow up documents to send out after a presentation. However, they are less appropriate for an in-person (or online) presentation as they are not designed to be presented by a presenter.

What is Zoho Show?

Zoho Show is part of a web-based online office suite containing word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, web conferencing, and more.

For the Zoho Suite:

Individual (free)

Zoho Workplace (from £2.40 per month)

Zoho Show has a similar feel to PowerPoint. If you want new, sexy templates then the small selection on offer might disappoint. The layouts are pretty basic, but you can select from a range of fonts and colour schemes.

The process of creating slides is very similar to creating slides in PowerPoint. You can turn on grids or create your own guides (if you can figure out how to duplicate the guide line). You can align to slide and shapes. You can hide slides and lock slides from editing. All useful. There are also some useful editing tools that are missing in many PowerPoint alternatives, such as ‘find and replace’ and spell check.

You can find smart elements under the Shape tab. These are editable but automatically animate at a level that would be hard to replicate – really useful. However, the icon library is limited.

Zoho Show has good text editing options including spacing, indent, fonts, superscript and subscript. There are also lots of image editing options e.g. crop to shape, apply filters, set transparent colour, alter brightness and contrast, and more. Zoho Show has good chart and graph options which are more editable than you see in many other PowerPoint alternatives (add/remove title, data labels, etc.). You can create freeform shapes which is really cool! Boolean tools would be a great addition to help users make the most of the freeform shapes.

You can insert content from Twitter and YouTube and hyperlink elements.

Zoho Show has slide masters, like in PowerPoint, giving you more control over what is happening on your slides and helping you create slides with consistent layouts.

There are lots of animation options: motion paths, emphasis, entrance and exit animations as in PowerPoint. And like, in PowerPoint, some of the animations are a little rubbish so tread carefully. Objects can animate in on click, after previous, or with previous.

You can change the animation order, add delays and extend the duration of animations but the animation timeline is not super useful as you can’t see whether animations overlap.

The bar graphic below has a built-in animation.

• Export/import PowerPoint files
• Version history
• Collaborative work: multiple users, real-time feedback, comments
• Small comment, but the shadow effect is rubbish!

If PowerPoint is not for you, then Zoho might not be either. It offers almost the same thing with a slightly different interface, fewer tools, and a few more web integrations. If PowerPoint is too complex, Zoho is only slight less complicated – you still have to start from scratch.

Does your PowerPoint alternative play nicely?

If all you need to do is create a nice looking presentation, most of these PowerPoint alternatives will do just fine. However, with decent slide software you can do a few different things; author, collaborate, present, distribute etc. The thing is, there are huge network effects when it comes to collaborating and distributing. You’ve created a beautiful presentation, but can you send the file to a colleague? Can they open it? Edit it? Can you present offline? Where is the file stored? If dealing with the presentation is a total headache it’s unlikely you’ll convince other people to switch to a PowerPoint alternative.

The ULTIMATE guide to PowerPoint alternatives: Conclusion

One final point to make is that you can create pretty complex interactivity in PowerPoint and though some PowerPoint alternatives, like Google Slides, do have interactivity options, many do not. Just something to consider!

And that is that! Though we’ve probably missed some PowerPoint alternatives, and new options will have hit the market by the time this is published, we’ve covered the big hitters out there. Let us know if we’ve missed one of your favourites in the comments below.

It’s been a momentous journey. We’ve learnt that sometimes you don’t get on with programs that look promising and that you can be surprised by the most unlikely ones.

If you think we’ve been too harsh, don’t worry, we hold PowerPoint to a high standard too! We want our clients to have slides that work best for them and help them achieve their goals, that means we expect a lot of the software we use to create presentations.

A lot of these programs rely on the fact that people want easy to use, good looking templates. But…

It ain’t what you use it’s the way that you use it, and that’s what gets results!

Olivia Kippax Jones

Managing consultant; content marketing lead, related articles, review: power-user.

• PowerPoint design / Presentation technology

Power-user is a PowerPoint add on that provides lots of little features every regular PowerPoint user has had day dreams about. I’m going to take you through a few of the features that I’ve found most helpful, and some that will be more helpful to those who haven’t been able to devote as much time to getting well versed in PowerPoint. Let's begin!

Review: Adobe Spark

• Presentation technology

Adobe Spark is an online and mobile design app developed to help people with no design expertise create social graphics, web pages, and short videos with impact. We decided to check it out.

Review: PowerPoint for Android

• Comments: 14

Should we all be creating presentations from trendy cafes on our mobiles? We review Microsoft's PowerPoint for Android and find out!

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We delivered this to over 100 people today, and everyone LOVED the presentation and story. We have received wonderful feedback, and have four opportunities already. Sarah Walker Softchoice

Blog > Best PowerPoint Alternatives in 2022

Best PowerPoint Alternatives in 2022

02.26.20   •  #presentation #powerpoint #alternatives.

Whatever the reason why you're looking for an alternative for PowerPoint may be, we're here to show you 7 great programs to use instead. Here's a quick overview - you'll find more detailed information below:

Overview video

Slides is amazing! The software is extremely intuitive to use and while there are design pre-sets, it still allows artistic freedom and adjustments. You will be left with wonderful slide decks. There is a free version, and the basic plan for 5$ a month is totally affordable as well. Presenting offline is only possible in the Lite and Pro version.

Who is it for?

Slides is for everyone who wants professional looking slides while not giving up creating your own creative slide deck. Its easy interface makes it perfect for anyone who doesn't want to spend a lot of time learning to use a new program.

• intuitive and easy to use
• integration of code or math formulas
• directly insert images from Unsplash or GIFs from giphy
• design your own themes
• slide decks in the free version are publicly viewable and may include ads

Pricing and Features

Free, Lite and Pro Version for single users, Team Version; Click here to see details

2. beautiful.ai

beautiful.ai (as suggested in the name) is a presentation software that uses artificial intelligence to get the best possible slides. And the results are - well - beautiful. After a short tutorial and some time to get used to the program, playing around with slides, elements and texts and seeing how the AI assistant transforms them is actually a lot of fun! In the Pro version, there's a desktop player included. The free version is for online use only.

beautiful.ai might not be the easiest tool to use on this list, but it is definitely one of the most interesting ones! We recommend it to anyone who wants to try out something new and to people who are thrilled about AI and tech innovations.

• really fun to use and play around with
• design is always amazing due to AI
• beautiful templates
• lots of functions and slide pre-sets even in the free version
• Limit of 60 slides in the free version
• Logo branding in the free version
• takes a little time to get used to

There is a basic plan and a Pro plan. Click here to get more information .

3. SlideLizard LIVE

SlideLizard is a PowerPoint Add-on that extends its features and makes it so much better. You’ll get everything you’ve ever missed in PowerPoint in just one software – poll creation, a live Q&A feature, slide sharing, audience feedback and presentation analytics. You won’t need a PowerPoint alternative anymore – because PowerPoint will have everything you need.

Everyone who wants to engage their audience and improve their presentation skills – especially people who do presentations often.

• get anonymous Feedback easily
• create polls
• analyse your held presentations
• answer questions as they arrive
• seamless integration into PowerPoint
• PowerPoint is required

Free and PRO versions for single users, Enterprise and single event plan on request. Click here to see details .

4. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a free tool for creating presentations. It resembles PowerPoint in use. Even though it's completely free, it contains lots of features and has everything you need to hold a basic presentation. Again, it is pretty easy to use. You do need an internet connection to create and present you presentation via Zoho Show, but it can be downloaded and opened in PowerPoint or as a PDF as well.

Since it is completely free, Zoho Show is especially perfect for students or anyone who doesn't want to spend money on a new presentation software. For free software, Zoho Show does a very good job.

• completely free
• similar to PowerPoint in function
• animation of objects and transitions
• easy to use
• collaborate with colleagues
• not that many templates available
• creating presentations may take a while

Zoho Show can be used for free with all features.

Canva offers lots of design templates and makes it possible to create visually stunning presentations within a short amount of time. It is not just a platform for creating presentations, but also for designing graphics for other purposes (eg. Social Media, Flyers,…) , so if you find also need to create content of that kind, Canva might be the perfect tool for you. You need an internet connection to create the slides, which you can download afterwards.

Canva is great for students, as the basic plan is free and completely sufficient for non-business purposes. It is great software for anyone who is looking for an easy and quick way to create professional-looking presentations and other types of content.

• huge selection of high-quality design templates
• choose from a variety of free and low-priced images, backgrounds and music
• slides can be downloaded and opened with PowerPoint
• limited storage space in basic plan
• no animation of objects (except for predefined illustrations)

There is a free basic plan, a Pro plan and an Enterprise plan for companies. Click here to see details .

Crello is similar to Canva. It is not only for creating presentations, but also Social Media posts, banners, prints and more. As for presentations, you can choose from a huge variety of templates. You basically only have to exchange the pictures and add text to finish your presentation. Internet connection is required.

Crello is the perfect tool for all designers, whether you're a beginner or already advanced. The free version offers a good deal of features, so it is definitely an option for people who do not want to spend money on software.

• lots of beautiful templates
• many features in the free version
• no animations
• no transitions

Crello offers a free basic plan and a pro plan. Click here to see details .

7. Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is a well-known alternative for PowerPoint. People like it for its user-friendly interface and for how easily you can create amazing, professional presentations. An internet connection is required while creating, Pro users can download their slides for offline viewing.

Due to the fact that you basically have to pay in order to use Haiku Deck, it might not be the best option for everyone. Presenters who don’t mind spending some dollars per month for good presentation software are likely to be satisfied.

• professional and widely used software for creating presentations
• user-friendly with lots of options for editing
• no real free version (you can only have one deck in the free one and the features are very limited)
• no Pro trial without entering payment information

Haiku Deck offers a Pro and a Premium plan. Students, teachers and non-profit organizations only pay half the price. Click here for details .

...or stick with PowerPoint instead?

While playing around with tools and alternatives is without a doubt fun, we are still huge fans of PowerPoint. It is the all-time allrounder for presentations, works offline and has so much to offer! As with most of the presented software, you can download the created slides and open them in PowerPoint as well. For anything you might miss in PowerPoint, there's probably already a great Plugin to help you. Click here to see the 5 best PowerPoint Plugins in 2020 .

What is the best PowerPoint alternative?

Unfortunately there is not THE best alternative. It depends very much on your application, which alternative is best suited for you. Our blog entry gives a good overview which software fits for whom.

Are there free PowerPoint alternatives?

Yes, there are free alternatives. These are free, for example: Canva, beautiful.ai or Crello. Our blog gives a good overview of the respective prices and features.

Related articles

About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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Best PowerPoint Alternatives and Presentation Tools of 2023

Dag Hendrik Lerdal

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It’s 2023, and I still meet people who can only name one presentation slideshow tool. Guess which one! Yup, the almighty Microsoft Office PowerPoint. While that isn’t a problem per se (PowerPoint has earned its reputation), it also means people may not be using the tools they need for their specific situations. 

So, in this article, I’ve tested and created a list of the best PowerPoint alternatives and presentation tools of 2023.

I’ll emphasize the following:

• Pricing – Subscription or one-time fee? Free as in free beer, or free with ads/watermark?
• Ownership of presentation media – Can you save your presentations offline, or are they stored in the cloud?
• Presentation portability – Are your presentations created in a proprietary closed format, and can they be exported to standard file formats like PPTX, PDF, etc.?
• The provider’s track record – Has the provider been around for a long time, and does it have a reputation for treating their customers well?
• Features – Do the tools stand out as rich in useful features for presentation authors?
• Supported operating systems – Is the presentation software available on several platforms? If not, do they provide a compatible presentation viewer on other platforms?

Ready? Let’s dive in!

The Easiest PowerPoint Alternative #1: Google Slides

Google Slides is very similar to PowerPoint, except it’s all in your browser . Unlike Office 365, Google Drive is free as long as you have a Gmail/Google Workspace account. 

If you’re fine with your presentations being stored on Google’s servers (and in your Drive account, where you can make files available online), Google Slides is a good alternative to PowerPoint. However, you can always download and export your presentations as PDFs, PPTX files, or images. 

No software downloads means you can access and edit your slides from any device with an internet connection.

Another reason to consider Google Slides is the real-time collaboration feature and the integration in the Workspace ecosystem. Again, think O365 – but Google’s. If your whole team is already using Google Workspace, it makes sense to use Google Slides, too.

It’s not too shabby when it comes to features , either:

• Templates, slide transitions, and animations
• Media integration to insert images, video, and audio into presentations
• Commenting and real-time collaboration
• Embeddable presentations
• Q&A and polls
• Export presentations as PDFs, PPTX, images, etc.
• Access presentations offline with the offline editing feature enabled in Google Drive

Alternative #2: Apple Keynote for Mac Fans

Some folks are die-hard Windows users; others prefer Mac. If you’re in the latter group, you might switch to Apple Keynote as your go-to presentation tool. And guess what? No fees. If you’ve got an Apple device, Keynote is 100% free . 

Storing your presentations? Keynote syncs through iCloud , so your creations remain within your Apple ecosystem. The offline editing feature ensures you’re not bound by Wi-Fi. You’ll also be able to export your presentations as PPTX, PDF, movie, animated gifs, images, HTML, and other formats. 

(Unfortunately, glitches can pop up when exporting, so double-check before you present.)

The features are nothing to scoff at, either:

• Live collaboration
• Control the presentation from an iOS device using Keynote Remote
• Presenter view
• Templates, effects, animations, graphic assets + Apple Pencil 
• Multimedia: live video feeds, and YouTube and Vimeo videos
• Support for OS X
• Export to PPT (possible glitches), PDFs, and more

Alternative #3: LibreOffice Impress for the Budget-Conscious Presenter

While LibreOffice Impress is not as sleek as some other options, it’s a robust choice if you seek functionality without breaking the bank. Since it’s an open-source tool, LibreOffice is free . 

Another pro is that if you’ve danced with other office suites, Impress’s interface will feel like an old friend. It offers a layout very similar to Microsoft PowerPoint’s. Unfortunately, the interface lacks the sleek polish of some commercial alternatives. 

Its cloud integration is clunky, too, so you might need to jump through a few hoops to get your presentation online. Otherwise, it will be stored on your PC.  

Of course, the good thing is that you can export your presentations as a PowerPoint file, PDF, or even in HTML format. Plus, LibreOffice Impress plays well with all operating systems : Windows, OS X, and Linux. 

Sounds good so far? Check out the features, and tick off the ones you’d like in a PowerPoint alternative:

• Media integration for images and videos
• Export to various formats, including PowerPoint and PDF
• Cross-platform compatibility (Windows, macOS, Linux)
• A wide array of formatting and design options
• Integration with other LibreOffice tools

A Note on SlideDog, the Most Powerful Addition to Your Presentation Toolkit

Let me jump in real quick to say that if you’re looking at PowerPoint alternatives, consider the reason you’re trying to find them. Is it just the availability online and a few extra features, or is it the fact that your presentations need more power ?

SlideDog allows you to combine PowerPoints, Prezis, PDFs, live web pages, and many more elements into one easy-to-create playlist. You don’t have to switch between different apps during your presentation just to maintain your audience’s attention.

As soon as the playlist is loaded, your content will play back as if it’s just one seamless file. 

Why Should You Try SlideDog?

SlideDog features include:

• Real multimedia support: Combine PowerPoints, Word and Excel files, videos and YouTube videos, live websites, and much, much more in one seamless playlist.
• Live sharing: Send your participants a link to your online channel, and they’ll be in with a click.
• Interact with your audience: Engage your participants with polls, Q&A, and audience chat features.
• Remote control: Control your presentation from any web-enabled device and maintain full control via the SlideDog Remote app.
• Digital signage support
• Store your files locally or in your online storage (Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive)

SlideDog comes with a free version to test it. The paid options start from $19/month for 2 seats, free upgrades, and the complete feature set. 

PowerPoint Alternative #4: Prezi for Visually Engaging Presentations

With Prezi , you’re not just walking down linear roads but soaring through dynamic skies. Prezi focuses on interaction and engagement with its zoomable presentations and interactive infographics and charts, which makes it a great PowerPoint alternative for situations where attention is what makes or breaks your presentation.

The side-by-side display of your presentation while you narrate through video is a really nice touch, too!

Prezi is cloud-based , making it accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. However, if you need to access or present your content offline, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the higher-priced plans. 

You can export your Prezi presentation as a PEZ (Prezi) file, PDF, and a few others, such as an .EXE file that you can load into a SlideDog playlist . Unfortunately, you can’t directly export to PowerPoint, and the exact file formats you’ll be able to export greatly vary depending on your plan. 

Finally, Prezi isn’t free. The plans start from $5/month and increase depending on the features you’d like to get. 

Are the features worth it? Let’s take a look:

• Zoomable, interactive presentations
• Display your presentation alongside your video
• Interactive infographics
• Web-based app
• No direct way to export to PPT
• Plans start from $5/month

Ultimately, Prezi is worth it if you’re a pro presenter, but if you’re not – well, you might not always want to jump through the hoops of their pricing plans.

Alternative #5: FlowVella for Digital Signage

When talking to presentation makers, I typically recommend FlowVella when they need digital signage. The functionality is great – but the presentations look good, too. The navigation bar is a neat trick, too, as it can make your presentations more engaging.

(Yep, when you’re in the presentation world, differentiating is the name of the game. If it looks like something your audience has already seen, you’ve already lost them. Familiarity is good – but only up to a point.)

Since you might need to get out in the field (especially if you’re a real estate agent), you can present without WiFi. If that’s easier, you can also export your FlowVella presentations to PDF, PowerPoint, and other formats. 

FlowVella also plays well with Windows, Mac OS, and mobile devices . There’s no truly free option, but the paid plans start from $10/month (or $60/year). 

Key FlowVella features include:

• Multimedia presentations – PDFs, navigation bars, videos, and more
• Offline and online access
• Export to PDF, PPTX, etc.
• Support for Windows, Mac OS, and mobile
• Pricing starts from $10/month

Alternative #6: Zoho Show

If you primarily need a PowerPoint alternative for business presentations, Zoho Show is a good option. The strength of Zoho Show lies in its ability to strike a balance between functionality and aesthetics. The platform doesn’t just get the job done; it does so with finesse. Think Google Slides, but with a few extra shiny objects – all 100% free . 

My favorite part is the navigation feature. Similar to FlowVella, Zoho Show offers a way for the audience to interact with your presentations, which is a good option when you’re sending them as marketing or sales collateral. 

Another standout aspect is Zoho Show’s adaptability. The presentation tool allows you to present without the need for a continuous internet connection. And if you need to share your work in various formats, Zoho Show lets you export your presentations to multiple formats including PDF and PowerPoint, ensuring compatibility.

Finally, Zoho Show’s compatibility isn’t limited to just one operating system. It seamlessly integrates with Windows, Mac OS, and mobile devices, and you can use it as a web-based app. 

You might like the following features :

• Templates and design tools
• Interactive navigation options
• Offline presentation capability
• Export to various formats
• Windows, Mac, and mobile device-compatible
• ZohoShow is free

Alternative #7: And Now for Something Completely Different with Mentimeter

When the goal is to transform a run-of-the-mill presentation into an interactive and engaging experience, Mentimeter emerges as a great PowerPoint alternative. From live polls that gauge instant feedback to dynamic quizzes that challenge your audience’s knowledge, Mentimeter offers a plethora of tools to stimulate interaction .

The interactive setup looks like a great PowerPoint alternative for educators, but I can assure you I’ve seen more than a few HR presentations where the audience kept their eyes peeled just because the data was visualized dynamically.

When it comes to access, you’ll need an internet connection to run your Mentimeter presentation. Plus, it won’t be easy to export it as anything other than a PDF or a set of images , which can put a dent in your grandiose presentation plans.

Still, it’s a web-based app , so you can use it regardless of your operating system.

Finally, let’s talk money. Mentimeter has a free plan for up to 50 monthly audience participants. However, if you want access to audience analytics and other snazzier features, you’ll need to consider the paid plans , which start from €11,99/month. 

Speaking of features specifically, Mentimeter offers:

• Real-time interactivity with Q&A, polls, and quizzes
• Interactive slides
• Cloud-based
• Free plan (paid options from €11,99/month)

PowerPoint Alternative #8: Ludus for the Design-Savvy Presenters

When I imagine graphic design presentations, I imagine that the designers are using Ludus as their PowerPoint alternative. Going beyond the ordinary, Ludus redefines the concept of presentations, transforming them into immersive visual journeys. You get a lot more control than you would with PowerPoint, including the ability to create dynamic presentations, use blending modes, manage fonts, and more. 

Plus, you can collaborate with your team in a very Figma-like way. 

Now, Ludus looks great – and that’s its main selling point. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to present offline unless you export to HTML. However, you can export to PDF and images, too. 

Since it’s web-based, you can use Ludus regardless of your OS, but it doesn’t come for free. The plans start from $14,99 /person/month. That’s why, personally, I only see it used in graphic design settings where the visuals are the money-makers through and through. If you only need business presentations that engage your audience, you’ll find much more affordable PowerPoint alternatives in this list.

The features sure are fancy, though:

• Creative design features and animations
• Multimedia integration, including live web pages
• Live collaboration, Figma-style
• Export to HTML, PDF, or images
• Plans start from $14,99/month/user

Which PowerPoint Alternative Will You Choose?

That depends on you! Mainly, I recommend looking at your presenting style, needs today (and tomorrow), and pricing. Ideally, you’ll find a tool that fully supports you at a price point you can stomach.

However, make sure you try before you buy! That’s why I made sure we offer a free version for SlideDog.

Give different tools a whirl and find the right fit!

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7 Great PowerPoint Alternatives

Here’s a quick question for you:

Did you really pay attention to the last presentation you sat through?

Sure, you remember some slides, graphs with financial forecasts, and bullet points. But at some point, you probably zoned out.

What makes presentations dull is that they’re made using the same tried and trusted Microsoft PowerPoint templates that everyone has been using for years. So what happens? Every presentation looks the same. 

Don’t get us wrong. Microsoft PowerPoint is a fantastic tool, and a pioneer in presentation software for a good reason.

But if users keep creating presentations the same old way and do not utilize presentation software to its full potential and employ their own styles and customizations, they’ll likely end up with a cookie-cutter slide deck that’s been used millions of times before. 

If you’re on this page, you’re probably on the looking to create your best presentation.

Why you should look for the best alternative to PowerPoint

To create professional looking presentations is more than just piecing together text, data visualizations , and images echoed by speaker notes.

Every slide should have an impact on the audience or reader, make a key point, and catch the eyes of your audience. All your presentations need to be mindful of visual design. Color, for example, influences up to 90% of a person’s snap judgment about a product.

There are many paid and even free alternatives available in the presentation space with better, newer, and fresher templates that can punch up your next presentation.

To make things easier for you, we’ve listed seven great alternatives to Powerpoint utilizing some of the best presentation software, complete with an overview of their features and individual pros and cons.

You can also click on the links below to go straight to each alternative to PowerPoint on this list. 

• Google Slides
• Beautiful.ai
• Apple Keynote
• LibreOffice Impress
• Adobe Creative Cloud Express

Alternative presentation tools

1. piktochart.

• Wide selection of professional-quality customizable templates
• Newbie-friendly video tutorials and a blog with design resources
• Robust features for free users, with even more available for Pro users
• Collaboration features for teams

Piktochart is a web-based design application that lets you create professional-looking presentations , infographics , posters , reports , flyers , social media graphics using a simple drag-and-drop interface. 

Piktochart pros

Like a PowerPoint presentation, Piktochart offers a wide range of templates for themes and topics to suit needs for marketing and sales, financial forecasts and performance, investor pitches, and more from creating dynamic presentations.

For new users or those who want to design and share presentations from scratch, check out the platform’s Help Center, Video Tutorials, and Blog, all of which offer a wealth of resources on Piktochart and general design topics. 

Free business users will have access to plenty of design key features on a completely free basis, but more can be unlocked if you get a paid plan for more customization options.

Paid plans start at $168/year ($14/month) for Pro and $29/month.

The Pro Team plan allows teams to work on shared presentations and consolidate projects.

Finally, you can download a presentation in high-resolution pdf files to present offline, PowerPoint files, or present straight from the platform user interface as a PowerPoint alternative.

You can also design an infographic and download it as blocks to convert into presentation slides or other graphic formats. Safe to say, Piktochart’s online presentation maker is one of the best free PowerPoint alternatives available today.

Piktochart cons

Unfortunately, Piktochart does not support native video playback on presentations, which rules out interactive video presentations. It also does not have version history.

You can, however, embed videos from Vimeo and YouTube into your presentation online, share to publish it, and copy and paste the URL on a browser to view the visual. 

Also, you can now record your presentations and that’s a form of “video presentations” that you can appreciate.

You could get started right away with Piktochart by signing up for free .

2. Google Slides

• Great for users already deep in Google’s online ecosystem (e.g., Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive) and a popular PowerPoint alternative
• Free for all personal users, and accessible to enterprises through G Suite
• Presentation app accessible on browsers and mobile devices
• Supports presentations through Chromecast and AirPlay

Google Slides is a slide deck platform that’s part of Google’s web-based office suite within Google Drive.

This presentation tool lets you create and present pitch decks, training modules, animated presentations, business presentations, and project presentations among others right in your browser, with no need to install any software. 

Google Slides pros

Google Slides is great if you’re already invested in other Google tools like Docs, Forms, and Sheets.

As one of the most-used alternatives to PowerPoint, it is also arguably the most accessible to create, share, and download presentations in different file types. Not only is it free to use for all personal users (enterprises can unlock more features through G Suite), but it’s also available on both browsers and mobile devices. 

Slides’ integration with Google Drive, Docs, and Sheets means that importing audio and video files, managing presentations, and collaborating on projects with teams is a breeze. 

Google Slides cons

One of the downsides of Google Slides being widely accessible to users of all skill levels is that you don’t get more advanced features and design tools found on other platforms.

For example, Google Slides does not have a selection of templates or visual content for common types of projects and presentations, but it’s nowhere near the variety you’ll find on the other platforms on this list. 

Bottom line? Google Slides is the best PowerPoint alternative for creating basic presentations with professionally designed templates. 

But if you want more advanced key features like slide transitions and effects, it’s best to look for another PowerPoint alternative for interactive presentations.

3. Beautiful.ai

• Uses AI to recommend visual elements and layouts on your slides based on design principles
• A simple and user-friendly design tool makes it easy for newbies to create beautiful presentations in minutes
• Wide selection of presentation application, slide templates, and key features

As its name suggests, Beautiful.ai is a presentation software that leverages artificial intelligence to suggest ways to visualize your ideas and customize your designs.

Beautiful.ai pros

Beautiful.ai ’s technology is the driving force behind its Smart Slides feature. 

Smart Slides ‘understand’ the content on your slide to make the best presentation possible. From there, this presentation tool intuitively makes recommendations on what elements you may want to add later and how you may want your slide layout to appear.

For novice users with little to no design experience, this process happens automatically, with Beautiful.ai organizing ideas and visualizing content quickly — all while providing guidance every step of the way. You get professional looking presentations in little time!

Free users have more than 60 presentations to choose from, with the option of unlocking more on the basic plan for $12/month and $15/month, billed annually and monthly, respectively. 

Beautiful.ai cons

Beautiful.ai is exclusively a presentation tool, and possibly the most popular PowerPoint alternative for technically savvy marketers, which can be disappointing if you want to use it to create other visual projects like posters and infographics as it lacks these key features. This would include data visualization and visual content.

Its Smart Slides also have set parameters that leave little for customization, meaning it works best when creating a simple presentation. 

Users can only move elements to specific spots on each slide which automatically adapt, which means you can’t make the overall design of your presentation your own. 

4. Apple Keynote

• Comes built-in with Apple macOS and is available for free on iOS as a presentation app
• Tight integration with other Apple apps makes it a natural choice for Mac users
• Compatible with PowerPoint and other presentation apps
• Better transitions and effects than PowerPoint

Keynote is Apple’s presentation application software that comes included with any purchase of an Apple laptop and desktop computer. 

It’s part of the Apple iWork productivity suite, alongside Pages and Numbers. 

Keynote pros

Keynote’s tight integration with other Apple apps also makes it a natural choice for Mac users. 

If you’re already familiar with Pages and Numbers, you’ll feel right at home with Keynote’s three-panel interface, composed of a formatting panel on the right side, a large editing section in the middle, and thumbnails on the left side. 

But what makes Keynote one of the popular PowerPoint alternatives are its transitions and effects. 

In particular, the software’s impressive Magic Move transition allows visual objects to smoothly move positions from one slide to another when playing your presentation.

Keynote users can also collaborate on presentations in real-time. Additionally, you can place restrictions on who can edit and only view your presentation. 

Keynote cons

PowerPoint and Keynote are generally compatible , provided Keynote presentations are exported in .ppt or .pptx format. 

However, elements like transitions, layouts, and fonts may look off if you’re exporting from Keynote to PowerPoint. You also will not have any integrations with live services such as Google Analytics.

5. LibreOffice Impress

• The entire LibreOffice suite is open-source and free
• Software supports all PowerPoint formats: .pps, .ppt, .pptxx

LibreOffice gets a lot of love for being a free and open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. LibreOffice Impress is the productivity suite’s alternative to PowerPoint, offering many of the same features found in its Microsoft counterpart. 

LibreOffice Impress pros

LibreOffice Impress supports all PowerPoint formats: .pps, .ppt, and .pptx. 

With it, you can create all kinds of slide-based presentations using five different editing and viewing modes:

• Normal, for general editing
• Outline, for outlining text content
• Notes, for adding and editing notes attached to slides
• Handout, for paper-based materials
• Slide Sorter, for quickly finding and changing the order of slides

Impress’s UI is far from the prettiest, but it gets the job done in a no-frills way with features like animations, effects, support for audio and video files, and timed presentations. 

LibreOffice Impress cons

Impress requires installation but is available on Microsoft, Mac, and Linux. The platform is also exclusive to desktops. 

Impress has only 23 default templates to choose from, so we recommend looking for templates on third-party platforms like GitHub . 

However, you’ll need to do some digging if you want templates that are just as good-looking as the ones found on software like Piktochart.

It’s also worth noting that even if Impress supports other presentation software, you can expect to see some formatting issues when importing and exporting presentations between platforms. 

6. Zoho Show

• Ideal for users invested in Zoho Office Suite
• Free for personal use; competitive rates for enterprise users
• Promises to keep formatting and elements intact when switching to PowerPoint

Zoho Show is a web-based presentation platform that’s part of the Zoho Office productivity suite. 

If you’re already using any of the Zoho office suite apps, it makes sense to create your presentations.  

Zoho Show pros

Zoho Show’s feature set is comparable to other platforms’ capabilities. 

It offers perks like real-time collaboration and editing, transitions and effects, animations, slide review and commenting, deck downloads, and online publishing, as well as online broadcasting and discussions.

Zoho supports file types on PowerPoint and open-source platforms like OpenOffice. 

Furthermore, Zoho promises that any presentation viewed on PowerPoint will be free of issues like missing fonts, layout errors, and broken objects. 

Zoho has more than 20 presentation themes to choose from, along with 100 fonts, animations, and charts to visualize data.

Zoho is free for personal users and small teams of up to five people. 

You can also unlock enhanced security, more collaboration features, storage, and admin controls by moving from the free plan to the Standard and Premium plans for $4/month and US6.4/month (billed annually), respectively. 

Zoho does not have an offline mode; you’ll need Internet access to edit or present slide decks. 

Videos and tweets on Zoho presentations can only be viewed online. At present, there’s no support for offline content.

7. Adobe Creative Cloud Express

• Ideal for individual users and enterprises that rely heavily on the Adobe design ecosystem
• Comes with a desktop version and mobile apps for iOS and Android
• Free to use and does not require a Creative Cloud account

Adobe Creative Cloud Express is a relatively new web-based design service that lets users create presentations as well as creative portfolios, landing pages, product pages and catalogs, newsletters, and photo galleries. 

Adobe Creative Cloud Express pros

Using Adobe Creative Cloud Express built-in Presentation Maker will come naturally to you if you or your business is already familiar with other Adobe products. 

But even new users with little to no graphic design experience will pick up the click-based platform in no time.

You can also use the other tools in the Adobe Creative Cloud Express suite, like Adobe Creative Cloud Express and Adobe Creative Cloud Express, to make specialized content to make your slides more interactive. 

For example, Adobe Creative Cloud Express Video supports audio and video content. You can also upload content straight from third-party sources like your library, Dropbox, Google Drive, and even social channels.

It also offers free users a small but diverse selection of presentation templates for different projects and occasions. 

Naturally, you unlock more templates and features like branding and team collaboration if you upgrade to the paid plans instead of a free plan.

Pricing starts at $9.99/month or $99.99/year for individual users and $19.99/month or $239.88/year for teams and enterprises. 

Adobe Creative Cloud Express cons

Free users are limited to a small selection of templates, limited ability to edit presentations, and no interactive features, e.g. interactive charts; which can get old when you need to make multiple engaging presentations in a year. 

Presentations made using the free version will also include the Adobe watermark. Finally, Adobe Creative Cloud Express does not support offline editing once you download a presentation.

What to look for in PowerPoint alternatives

Just as there are many ways to make a presentation , there are also several PowerPoint alternatives to consider. Some are better than others or have more features and presentation tools designed for your needs. 

To make choosing between Powerpoint presentations and their alternatives easier, consider these criteria:

• Accessibility . Is it an operating system (OS)-based or browser-based platform? The former requires installation on your computer (as in the case of PowerPoint) while the latter means it can be accessed using any web browser. Each has its pros and cons, depending on your needs. For example, OS-based platforms don’t require an Internet connection to run. On the other hand, browser-based platforms need an Internet connection but can be accessed (along with your designs) on any browser.  
• Usability . Is the platform easy to use or does it have a steep learning curve? Look for software that comes with tutorials designed to help new users create professionally designed slides. The best presentation software isn’t just simple and easy to use, but it also supports additional media to keep the audience engaged.
• Notable features . Apart from the usual ability to add text, images, and graphics to slides, you want a presentation platform with extra features such as collaboration, robust design tools, support for audio and rich media, and a wide variety of templates for reports and presentations. You want to capture the audience’s attention!
• Price . Finally, consider the price of the presentation software. Some are a free alternative, others come bundled with the OS, while the rest are available to enterprises on a monthly and annual subscription. 

Make your best slides with Piktochart presentation templates

Using Piktochart, you can make visuals and build better presentations within minutes in various formats.

With Pro, you can also collaborate with up to 24 members, unlock custom templates and professionally designed layouts, have complete control, upload your own fonts, and get unlimited downloads.

Stop searching for PowerPoint alternatives, and get started today by signing up for free.

Robin Geuens is a writer turned SEO specialist. When he's not wondering what Google is up to next he's either reading, taking courses, playing video games, or wondering where to travel to next.

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15 Best Presentation Software Alternatives To PowerPoint in 2024

To make an outstanding presentation, host a webinar, and speak publicly, you must make a slideshow to go with your presentation. The software you use to create these presentations is just as essential as your skills.

The demand for business presentation software has increased, which has led many businesses to transition to working remotely. You need to consistently create presentations that will grab the audience’s attention, and software with great functionality is ideal for this.

This article will explain alternatives to PowerPoint that will help you pick the best software for your online presentations.

Best Presentation Software for Building Stunning Slides

A free presentation software ideal for small and large companies.

Visme is a content creation tool to tell stories and convert boring data into engaging visuals. It has numerous templates for slideshows, logos, infographics, storyboards, and marketing materials. With several automation features for publishing and display, publishers can set the time to automate online presentations.

Currently, Visme is available as a web and macOS application. The windows version is in development. You can access your projects and files from anywhere because it is cloud-based. It is easy to learn and requires no software download.

This business presentation software provides videos, webinars, and articles to help you learn Visme and gain business skills. Using its basic text editor, you can make captions, headlines, or text blocks for your works. You can contact a specialist through their email support.

Visme offers a free plan that is available for as long as you want to use it. This plan provides you 100 MB of storage, and you can download the file in JPG format. It offers three paid plans. The Standard Plan, which costs $25 per month, is ideal for gaining access to the features needed for individual use. You get 250 MB of storage and can download the file as a PDF.

The best value plan for this software is the Business Plan, which costs $49 per month. With this plan, you can manage your brand and scale Visme across the whole team. You get access to 10 GB of storage and can download files in PPTX, HTML5, video, and GIF formats.

The Enterprise Plan is suitable for advanced features, upgraded security, onboarding, support, and integrations. This plan comes with 2-factor authentication for additional security and 25 GB of storage. You can contact a sales representative to discuss a custom quote.

A Collaborative Presentation Software for Modern Teams

Pitch focuses on real-time collaboration, smart workflows, and intuitive design features. It is built for the way teams work to help teams of all sizes do work. With this software, teams can deliver beautiful presentations pretty fast.

This software is easy to use as non-designers can easily express themselves, and professional designers can completely control their slides. You can embed videos, images, GIFs, and up-to-date data from Google Sheets and Google Analytics.

You can share professional document templates that you can use to research and create your content. It goes beyond sharing visual templates. Editing of slides can be done with your team in real-time. Using Pitch’s i-framing feature, you can play the presentation from anywhere with GIFs and videos.

Pitch offers a free forever plan called the Starter Plan for individuals and teams just getting started. With this plan, you get unlimited presentations, live video collaboration, and custom templates and fonts. The paid plans have competitive prices.

The Pro Plan costs $8 per member per month and is suitable for power users and growing teams. You get workspaces roles, video uploads, everything in the Starter Plan, and other unique features. If you belong to a larger organization, the Enterprise Plan is ideal. It offers SAML-based SSO, dedicated manager, and advanced security.

You can contact a sales representative for a custom quote.

A Web-based Presentation Software that Allows You Interact with Your Visuals on Screen

Prezi is web-based presentation software that allows you to create and present presentations with motion and organic structure. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. With its canvas-based approach, your presentation can move around with the zooming in and out ability. You do not need to download any software since it runs through the web.

You get access to about 100 templates for building presentations. The map template ensures that your audience feels a sense of space and distance between locations. Also, using the iceberg template, you can illustrate how there’s more to a topic than there is. You can as well decide to start from scratch.

Up to 10 people can work on Prezi at once, and it has a drag-and-drop editor that is easy to use. Prezi comes with other apps, which are Prezi video and Prezi Design. Videos can be embedded from YouTube; however, they are not viewable in offline mode.

The creation of Prezi’s presentations can only be done on a computer but can be viewed on mobile devices.

Prezi is entirely free and includes up to 5 visuals; however, you can pay for upgrades to get additional features. It also offers a 14-day free trial period when you can try out its features before committing.

The Standard Plan, which costs $3 per month, is ideal for personal use. Using this plan, you can create presentations and designs with advanced privacy options. The most popular plan is the Plus Plan for expert visual communicators. It costs $7 per month.

Suitable for business professionals is the Premium Plan, which costs $9 per month.

4. Google Slides

A cloud-based office suite by google that allows you to edit, comment, and share slides.

Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software available through your Google account. The business version of this software is called G-Suite. It is ideal for business professionals, educators, orators, and students who need fast and easy access to presentations. You can make presentations both on and off the web.

There is a general collection of templates that you can choose from to get your presentation done; however, you can start it from scratch. One cool thing about this presentation software is that users can make edits in real-time and collaborate even when on the go. One can give access to others to be able to modify their presentations. Depending on the sharing option, they can edit, view, and comment on the presentation.

With its auto-save option, files are saved automatically. Anytime you make changes in your presentations, Slides saves it immediately. It is available for desktops, iOS, and Android devices.

Google Slides is completely free.

A Native Apple Presentation Software Exclusive to Mac OS Users

Keynote is a slideshow application in Apple fashion. This business presentation has built-in iCloud and Apple Watch support so that users can control their presentations from their wrists. It comes pre-installed on most Mac devices.

This presentation software comes with an array of templates that you can choose from to create your presentation. The interface is super easy to use. Being driven more by images and less by bullet points, Keynote is pretty engaging.

You can collaborate on presentations with anyone and from anywhere, and it works on Macs, iPhones, and iPads. Find where you left off playing videos and movies using Keynote. With its outline mode, you can jot down your thoughts, restructure your ideas, and move concepts from slide to slide.

Slideshows can be played on its window so that you can access other apps during the presentation. You can also view your presenter’s note, current and upcoming slides in a separate window. Using its exportation option, you can export your presentation as a movie or animated GIF to share online.

The split view functionality allows you to use applications physically side by side while each app remains in full-screen mode.

Keynote is free for Apple users. They can access it via the cloud with an Apple ID.

A Popular Presentation Platform for Designers to Use its Broad Capabilities

Presentations created with Ludus are creative, dynamic, and vibrant, but never static. You can easily drag and drop objects such as videos, 3D models, sound clips, cloud-based files, and many more from your computer into your slides.

Ludus allows you to collaborate with your teammates simultaneously without getting in the way of each other. Your videos are automatically converted to the most common video formats so that they can be viewed on any device. You can also clone your presentation by copying it inside your present account or sending it to another one, maybe your team account.

This presentation software is web-based and makes sharing your presentations super easy. You can create fonts or collect from other places to use them in the slides. Users can use the upload option to upload their fonts. You can save Ludus as a desktop app that supports SVG images, JPG, PNG, and GIF by default.

In an environment without the internet, users can use its PDF/HTML export that works perfectly offline. Audios can be uploaded as audio files from DropBox, SoundCloud, and other integrations.

All of Ludus’ plans contain all the features. The size of your team determines the amount you will pay. The larger the team, the lower the amount you pay. It offers a 30-day free trial period without credit card information required when you can try out its features before committing.

Ludus has four pricing plans. The Ludus Small Plan, which contains 1 to 15 people, costs $14.99 per month per user. Containing a number of 16 to 35 people is the Ludus Medium Plan, which costs $13.99 per month per user.

The Ludus Large Plan contains a number of 36 to 50 people and costs $12.99 per month per user. Lastly, for a team with 51+ people, the Ludus Corporate Plan is ideal. It costs $11.99 per month per user.

7. Slidebean

A presentation software that designs its presentations.

Slidebean is ideal for presenters looking to become professionals in their fields because of its user-friendly interface. Users only need to input content and let the software do its job. Presentations are kept in sync and can be shared with anybody, no matter the device they are using.

With its dozens of built-in presentations, users can create their presentations without having to start from scratch. You do not require any additional plugins or installations to embed Slidebean in a website. If there is no internet connection, presentations can be exported into PPT and PDF formats.

The software provides elements such as tables, charts, images, titles, texts, icons, bullets, quotes, videos, and many more to create professional slides. It is ideal for startups, consultants, small businesses, and academics.

You can track presentation views with Slidebean’s presentation insights to tell the time people spent on a presentation and how many slides they got through. Its editor is powered by AI, and it arranges slides automatically.

There is a pricing plan from students to startups founders and consultants. Slidebean has a free forever plan which comes with a lot of benefits. Its three paid plans are pretty affordable. The Starter Plan, which costs $8 per month, has all the features that you need to start presenting.

For creating entirely professional presentations, the Premium Plan is ideal, and it costs $19 per month.

The Founder’s Edition Plan is designed for startups founders, and it costs $149 per month. This plan includes design services.

8. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a browser-based presentation software with various templates to create presentations that suit your professional needs. It has similar features to PowerPoint but with a more basic user interface.

With this software’s collaboration features, you can stay in sync with your teams. You can export files in PPTX, PPSX, HTML, ODP, and PDF format with any name that you choose. It works on all desktops and Android devices.

Businesses, students, entrepreneurs, and educators use this presentation software. Using SoundCloud, you can add audio with embed code. Custom branding of your presentations is only available with the premium plans.

Zoho Show offers a free plan called the Zoho Docs and is always free for teams of up to 5 users, and each user gets 5 GB. This software offers a 15-day trial period with no credit card required when you can try out its products before committing.

For enhanced security, better collaboration, organization-wide reporting, and analytics, the most popular plan, which is the Standard Plan, is suitable. This plan costs $4 per month. The Premium Plan costs $6.4 per month. With this plan, you get more storage, robust admin controls, an active directory, and a single sign-on. If you subscribe yearly, you get a 20% discount.

9. Beautiful.ai

A presentation software with editable powerpoint.

Beautiful.ai is presentation software that empowers just anyone to build their presentations in a couple of minutes. With its wide array of templates available to pick from, getting started becomes pretty easy. As you keep adding content, your slide keeps adapting.

You can use images as small icons to feature team members with text overlay. Beautiful.ai helps you to create presentations 10X faster. This software allows you to edit and present offline. It allows you to track your presentations to see which slide is getting the most attention.

With Beautiful.ai, you can securely share your presentation so that only the people you want are able to view it.

Beautiful.ai offers a free forever plan and a 14-day free trial period when you can try out its fantastic premium features before committing. The free plan is called the Basic Plan, and it is ideal for individuals.

For professionals, the Pro Plan, which costs $12 per month, is suitable. With this plan, you can remove beautiful.ai branding from your presentations, upload custom fonts, and a host of other unique features.

The Team Plan, which costs $38 per user per month, is ideal for organizations. There is no limit on the number of presentations you can create with this plan. You can purchase your plans annually and save 20%.

10. Genially

A web-based tool that allows you create animated infographics and games.

Genially is easy to use as no programming language is required. It has lots of templates that you can use to create your presentations. You can as well start from scratch. Adding visual effects or animations to your presentations makes them attractive.

This presentation software helps you measure the impact you have made on your audience to know what part of your presentation you need to improve for better results. It supports rich media from different platforms. You can pull content from Dropbox, Infogram, YouTube, Twitter, and many more platforms to that effect.

With Genially’s support for collaboration, multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously, allowing for faster completion of the project. Paying subscribers can download Genially presentations for offline viewing.

The interface is super easy and is available in English and other languages. You can add animation effects in seconds.

Genially offers a free plan for those who are new to explore before buying it. It offers three paid plans. The Pro Plan costs $7.49 per month. The Master Plan is suitable for getting additional advanced features, and it costs $20.82 per month.

Teams that like a big family can go for the Team Plan, which costs $79.15 per month. With its annual payment, you can save up to 48%.

A Free Graphic Design Platform that Allows You to Create Presentations

Canva uses an intuitive drag and drop editor to design. The Canva schedule feature is a social media tool that puts you out there. This software allows you to create unique designs for professional and personal use. Its interface is so easy that even non-graphic designers can use it.

You can use its millions of texts and fonts to create presentations and social media graphics. With its beginner-friendly features, you can do more than basic cropping and texturing photos. You do not need to install this software on your computer, as you can access it on the web.

The Canva website contains millions of photos that you can download for free. Users can also create their designs from scratch. It is suitable for bloggers, businesses, and professionals.

Canva offers a free forever plan that contains the basic features that you need to start designing. It has two paid plans. This plan gives you unlimited access to tools and content. The best value plan is the Pro Plan. You can try Canva Pro free for 30 days to get access to its amazing features before committing. It costs $119.99 per year for up to 5 people.

The Enterprise Plan helps you empower your team, manage your brand, and scale your content all in one place. This plan costs $150 per month for up to 5 people.

12. Haiku Deck

A free app that makes presentations simple.

Haiku Deck is hosted online and can be downloaded in .pptx format. This software is best for teachers, trainers, and entrepreneurs. You have access to analytics that will help you understand how your presentations are being viewed. This is best for keeping track of how customers are consuming your presentation.

This presentation software offers thousands of professionally designed templates to choose from. It is available on the web; therefore, you can create, edit, and view decks in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. You can create presentations in the cloud for easy sharing.

Learning Haiku Deck doesn’t take time, as it is super easy to use. You can save your presentations as a video.

Haiku Deck offers special pricing to qualifying students, educators, and nonprofit organizations. It offers two paid plans. The most popular plan, which is the Pro Plan, is suitable for teaching, training, and conference presentations. This plan costs $9.99 per month if billed annually and $19.99 per month if billed month-to-month.

For effective selling and engaging webinars, the Premium Plan is ideal. It costs $29.99 per month. This software offers a 7-day free trial period when you can try out its features before committing.

13. Powtoon

A visual communication platform for creating animated videos and presentations.

With Powtoon’s drag and drop editor, you can create custom presentations with ease. You can publish created presentations as PPT or PDF. You can choose from a royalty-free library animation, images, soundtracks, and live-action videos, or you can as well start from scratch.

This tool is more of an animation maker. It allows you to save an offline version of your animated video. You can have it play as a movie instead of a click-through presentation. Your work is saved automatically, so you do not have to worry about losing your presentations.

You can use regular text editing to change the font type and size. For your presentation, you can import audio files and pick from the ones available on the website. Powtoon is super easy to use, and you do not need to be an expert video editor to use it.

The free plan is ideal for personal use and has Powtoon branding. Powtoon has three paid plans. The Pro Plan costs $19 per month . You get to save 79% if you purchase the annual plan. With this plan, you can only make five premium exports per month.

Powtoon’s best value plan is the Pro+ Plan, which costs $59 per month. If billed annually, you can save up to 69%. This plan gives you about 10 GB of storage and unlimited access to all content.

The Agency Plan costs $99 per month. This plan gives you access to unlimited premium exports,100 GB of storage, unlimited access to all content, and many other advanced features.

14. Microsoft Sway

A new app from microsoft office that makes it easy to create presentations.

Microsoft Sway is free to use for anyone with a Microsoft Account. All you need to do is to provide the content, and Sway does the rest. Your connections can see your creations on the Web without signing in, signing up, and downloading anything.

Whenever you want more control over what you share, you can change the privacy settings. With its accessibility view feature, you can have a more comfortable reading experience with keyboard navigation. You can add running voice commentary according to your requirements.

This software introduces the new concept of building “Sways” instead of PowerPoint. Its non-traditional storyline editor allows you to add blocks of content that the software configures into layouts. You can either upload your media or select from the various sources inside Sway. There is the option to upload videos from your device or embed them from YouTube.

Sway works on any device, so long there is an internet connection. You can download your Sway as a Word or PDF to view offline. There is no password protection policy; however, you can share your Sway with anybody so that anyone with the link can access it.

Microsoft Sway offers four paid plans. The Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan costs $5 per user per month if billed annually . The desktop version is not included in this plan. Businesses that need complete remote work and collaboration tools should go for Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan , which costs $12.50 per user per month if billed annually.

The Microsoft 365 Business Premium plan costs $20 per user per month. This plan is ideal for businesses that seek a secure remote work solution. The Microsoft 365 Apps plan costs $8.25 per user per month if billed annually. This plan gives you Office apps across devices and cloud file storage.

Prices do not include tax, and You can sign up for its 1-month free trial period when you can get access to its features before committing.

15. Microsoft PowerPoint

A program included in the microsoft office suite for presentations purposes.

Users with an existing Microsoft 365 subscription can access Microsoft PowerPoint for free on their Microsoft devices. While you present, you can add temporary markups to your slide. Your audience can see this, but it is not permanently added to the slide.

The interface is super easy to use because of its familiarity. If you want to create simple conventional presentations, PowerPoint is for you. You can upload videos and images from your device as well as YouTube.

There are both desktops and cloud versions of PowerPoint. The app is available on both Android and iOS devices. You can download your presentation in PPTX and PDF.

For up to 2-6 people, Microsoft 365 Family, which costs $99.99 per year, is suitable. With this annual subscription, you get to save 16%. In the mobile app, you get premium safety features. You get up to 6 TB of cloud storage which is 1 TB per person. This plan offers you a 1-month trial period when you can try out its features before committing.

The Microsoft 365 Personal costs $69.99 per year. You can save up to 16% with an annual subscription. It is ideal for up to 1 person and gives 1 TB of cloud storage.

You can download PowerPoint for free on any device, including mobile.

What Makes a Great Presentation Software?

Good presentations are not common; however, great presentations are rare. A great presentation is memorable such that it contains graphics and images in a way that makes it easy for your audience to remember even after many days. As much as you want to use visuals, you should avoid colors and combinations that scream that you lack good taste.

Getting across all the necessary information in your presentation is essential. But you should also keep in mind that an over-lengthy presentation will bore your audience. So, you need to make your presentation as brief as possible.

The magical rule of 10/20/30 will make your presentation perfect. Tell your story in 10 slides, within 20 minutes, and in 30 points/size font. If you cannot convey the most important message of your topic in 20 minutes, then you do not own your presentation.

The ultimate quality of a great presentation is clarity. A presentation needs to be clear enough to convey a message to the audience. If you make a presentation without your audience getting the message, then you have failed. Tell real stories to keep your audience hooked.

How to Choose the Best Microsoft PowerPoint Alternative?

There are many PowerPoint alternatives one can go for. They vary as some have more features than the To make choosing the best alternative easy for you, consider the following criteria.

• Ease of use. Presentation software should be easy to use and straightforward. Anyone, regardless of their skill set, should quickly learn how to use the software and create a presentation. Watch out for those platforms that come with training videos and tutorials to help onboarding users. It should also support additional media to make them more engaging.
• Accessibility. This is a significant factor that one needs to consider when choosing presentation software. You need software with greater functionality to consistently create presentations that grab the audience’s attention. You can use an operating system or browser-based platform, depending on your needs. The operating system requires installation on your computer and does not require an internet connection, while browser-based platforms can be accessed anywhere through the web and need an internet connection to access it.
• Cost. You should consider the price of the presentation software and its features before making your decision. Considering your budget, you might want to go for a platform that offers a free forever plan. You might also be buoyant enough to go for the platform that provides the best functionalities at a high rate. Some presentation platforms offer unique features at a low rate. Whichever fits your needs and budget is what you should go for.
• Unique Features. Apart from the regular abilities of presentation software, you want to go for a platform with extra unique features such as collaboration, support for audio and rich media, robust design tools, a wide variety of templates, and other advanced features.

Presentation Software FAQ

Presentation software allows users to create a presentation of ideas by bringing together images and videos. Presentation software is also known as a presentation program. It is generally used for creating slideshows that display information.  An excellent presentation software gives you the tools and functionalities that you need to create a winning presentation. Presentation software is divided into business presentation software and general multimedia authoring tools.  This software contains a text editor to add your written content. They also support graphic images such as photographs and clip arts to make your slideshow colorful and get your point across.

The major use of presentation software is to create presentations, e-learning packages, and many other multimedia products. It allows you to arrange essential information into a series of slides. You could combine texts, images, links, animations, and videos on each slide to create a unique final product.  Its three main components are a text editor for inputting and formatting text, a facility for inserting graphics and other multimedia files, and a slideshow system for displaying the content.

Presentation software with the best templates are Visme , Pitch , Prezi , Google Slides , Keynote , Zoho Show , and Genially . They have wide arrays of templates that you can choose from to create your unique presentation.

A slide deck is a presentation made up of multiple slides, within each slide displaying some sort of information. Its purpose is to break down information that is hard to understand into digestible parts. A slide deck is a typical PowerPoint presentation or slideshow.  Creating a slide deck helps you remember key points, provides visual cues for your presentation, and helps keep things concise, and saves time. It is pretty easy to create one. The steps to creating a slide deck are:  1. Plan Out the Actual Content of the Deck This step is about planning what to include in your presentation before worrying about design, layouts, and themes. Start with a problem, then continue with proffering a solution to the problem. Discuss your business strategies, perform a competitive analysis, and then finally share financial projections.   2. Design and Create Your Presentation Pick a platform to create your slide deck. You want to pick the platform that best suits the topic you wish to present. You can add visuals to make your slide more engaging. Remember that the lesser the words, the more engaged your audience will be. Your slide should be as concise as possible.

Visme is a great alternative as it is cloud-based and allows you to access your projects and files from anywhere.  Prezi is web-based and allows you to create presentations with motion and organic structure.  Google slides allow users to make edits in real-time.  Ludus allows you to collaborate with teammates without getting in the way of each other.

Which Presentation Software Should I Pick for My Business?

Select a presentation software based on your needs, budget, and number of users. If you are looking for a free solution and has all the functionalities you need to create unique presentations, go for Canva , Genially , Beautiful.ai , Zoho Show , Slidebean , Google Slides , Prezi , Pitch , and Visme .

Prezi , Ludus , Beautiful.ai , Haiku Deck , and Microsoft Sway offer a free trial period when you can try out their features before committing. For a large team , Prezi and Genially are suitable as multiple people can work on a presentation simultaneously.

The best software that is easy to use and does not require so much training to get started are Keynote , Genially , Haiku Deck , Powtoon , Microsoft PowerPoint , Pitch , and Prezi . You do not have to carry your laptop everywhere you go. With Google Slides , Visme , Pitch , and Keynote , you can access your presentation from anywhere and on any device.

Google Slides is the ideal choice for freelancers and telecommuters for dispersed teams because it has real-time collaboration features. Making the right decision is a matter of “different strokes for different folks.”

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Anastasia belyh.

Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.

Anastasia worked in management consulting and tech startups, so she has lots of experience in helping professionals choosing the right business software.

10 PowerPoint Online Alternatives and Software for Outstanding Presentations

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By Al Boicheva

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Why talk about PowerPoint online alternatives?   There is a big number of occasions calling you to put your great ideas into a memorable presentation. You want to make it perfect, unique and crafted with a beautiful yet clean design.

That’s normal as PowerPoint has gone a long way in professional settings for more than a decade.

On one hand, it’s standard, it’s easy to use and it’s an undeniable classic. On the other, it has a linear nature that forces the speaker to reduce complex subjects into simple bullets. It’s also quite pricey and conventional.

In that case, you might be looking for more affordable, different and easy to use PowerPoint online alternatives.

There is a lot of presentation software for you to choose from.

According to your needs, some apps offer real-time collaboration, non-linear style, mobile editing, auto slides, beautiful templates, live-sharing and much more. Just think of the goals your presentation needs to achieve and let’s begin.

We selected the 10 best PowerPoint Online alternatives and software to aid your presentation crafting (as well as some honorable mentions).

10. libreoffice impress  .

Same as LibreOffice is the free and high-quality answer to Microsoft Office, LibreOffice Impress is respectively the PowerPoint alternative presentation software. The program even looks similar in terms of interface, tools, and functionality and supports all PowerPoint formats. As we already established, Impress might be the ultimate alternative if you need a similar tool for slideshows and presentations.

• Price : Free
•  very similar to PowerPoint
• free software
• easy-to-use drawing and diagramming tools
• 2D and 3D images from text
• supports multiple monitors 
• only 10 template presentation backgrounds
• inability to auto-advance existing .pptx files
• lack of new creative designs
• Ideal for: students, education purposes, personal use

For all Apple users there, Keynote is the best PowerPoint alternative. It exists as stand- alone product as well as a part of the full iWork set. It’s incredibly easy to learn and navigate and it offers numerous beautiful templates to incorporate into your presentations without putting much effort.

• Price : $19.99 or free with new Macs
• PowerPoint compatible allows the same features
• easy to learn and use, simplistic menus
• user- friendly sophisticated interface
• allows the creation of interactive animated charts
• more than 30 cinematic effects for objects
• can be accessed and edited on mobile devices
• collaborative
• free with new Macs
• allows to project the presentation via video out
• only available for Macs
• no slide library
• Ideal for: Mac users, companies, personal use

This alternative is directed towards the most creative presenters who want to fully customize their own slide themes. The web designers would love this one.  Using a handful of fonts, shapes transition animation, and modern color sets, you can craft your own unique designs and if you want to go even further, the presentation software includes pro plan for custom CSS and HTML.

• Price :  $7/month Lite, $14/month Pro(25% annual discount)
• user friendly
• access to revision history
• displaying math formulas
• editable HTML
• includes tutorial
• full editing capability
• cloud- based
• only linear style presentations
• limited templates
• Ideal for: students, educational purposes, designers, personal use

7. Slidebean

Similar to what you get with Haiku Deck and its AI tool, Slidebean is another PowerPoint alternative which grants you an automatization in terms of design. If you don’t have the time, Slidebean will create and design the slides itself allowing you to concentrate solely on the presentation content. Although it doesn’t offer much functionality, it’s quick to craft your presentation and it sports plenty of templates to suit your project. 

• Price : Free, $29/month All-Features
• access to icons and gallery within the software
• chat feature
• allows access to viewers’ actions
• easy to use
• automatic slide-creation
• no animation
• very limited customization
• Ideal for:   students, educational purposes, designers, personal use

6. Google Slides

The Google cloud-based presentation tool is quick to access in your personal Google account. Highly collaborative as every other Google tool, Slides offers real-time edits, a built-in IM function for chatting during group projects, and full access to all revisions made by your team members. The software is free and comes with mobile apps for your Android or iOS device. All you need is an Internet connection.

• Price : Free. Extra storage from $1.99/month for 100GB
• compatible with PowerPoint
• real- time collaboration
• beginner- friendly
• not suitable for heavily animated presentations
• requires Google account
• Ideal for: students, educational purposes, companies, personal use

5. Haiku Deck

The mobile alternative to PowerPoint has gained lots of popularity thanks to its strong visuals and elegant looks. The cloud-based presentation software comes with over 40 million stock photos and its signature artificial intelligence tool which has the ability to build the slides and choose images for you. The so-called Haiku Deck Zuru AI saves time and it’s perfect if you have to craft a last-minute presentation.

• Price : $19.99/month Pro, $29.99/month Premium
• over 40 million stock photos
• artificial intelligence tool to save time
• no offline work
• made mainly for image-based slide decks
• Ideal for: students, education purposes, traveling salesmen

4. Zoho Show

Another popular PowerPoint alternative is Zoho Show. As a part of the suite of the operating system for business Zoho, this presentation software helps you make and access your projects from any device connected to the Internet. Its functions vary from designing great-looking presentations, to document managing, collaboration, and sharing. The best part is the broadcast feature that allows you to remotely show your presentations live on the web.

• Price : Free; extra storage and features from $5/month
• appealing visuals
• embed YouTube videos and live tweets
• broadcast feature
• collaborative tools
• supports multiple types of files
• most similar to PowerPoint
• comes with a free- option
• no distorted and misaligned images
• limited animations or transitions to choose from
• Ideal for: students, companies, personal use

3. Slidedog

Slidedog is the most alternative of the PowerPoint Online alternatives. It’s the most untraditional presentation software out there as it serves the role of a multimedia playlist allowing you to move around and play all kinds of media files and documents seamlessly. The software gives you the position of a DJ switching smoothly and easily from slide decks to a website, from a video to a document in the middle of your presentation as you please.

• Price : Free, $19.99/month, $99.99/year (with 20% renewal discount), $299.99 one-off purchase
• multimedia presentation tool combining slide decks, presentations, videos, PDFs and etc
• real-time share
• features a companion remote mobile device app
• allows remote control from a smartphone, tablet, and PC
• featured live chat
• live polls during the presentation
• smooth transitions
• can’t design slide content
• can’t create a presentation from scratch
• Ideal for:  education purposes, personal use, and presenters who need multiple media formats

In case standard linear slideshows aren’t enough and you wish for a more vibrant story-based presentation, then PowToon is definitely the best PowerPoint Online alternative for you. The platform offers characters and cartoons to choose from, as well as cleverly made animation and transitions that would turn any presentation into a colorful animated video.

• Price : F ree, $89/month (or $228/year) Pro, $197/month (or $828/year) Pro+
• cloud-based
• rich gallery
• relatively easy to use, there are many tutorial videos
• supports rich text editing
• adds a watermark to all presentations
• no autosave
• many tools and options are only available in the upgraded subscription version
• inability to save an offline version of your work
• no live collaboration
• can’t open other presentation programs file formats
• Ideal for: youtube info videos, personal projects, students, and educational purposes.

Honorable mentions:

There are incredible options for presentation software out there and they are surely not limited to 10 only. This is why we’d like to add a few more suggestions for you to consider.

Starting at $12.25 a month per user, this alternative presentation software is actually a gulp of fresh air from the familiar PowerPoint themes. With its drag and drop style and beautiful infographics, Visme will help you craft a compelling presentation with great visuals. Similar to Haiku Deck, it offers millions of free images and lots of tweaks for the sake of creating virtually any visual content. Unfortunately, it’s not compatible with PowerPoint file formats.

Qwilr is a great option if you want an easy-to-use tool capable of producing professional-looking proposals. It includes features such as allowing you to embed spreadsheets, videos, and SlideShare presentations. As well as sending you notifications when your client views the proposal – and even allowing them to accept the job with just 1 click.  Prices run at $35 per month for a Business account and $590 for an Enterprise account. But you can give it a test run by signing up for a 14-day free trial.

Another presentation software that uses HTML5, Emaze is designed to also make video presentations within minutes. It’s strongly template-driven, but this will only allow you to focus more on your content.

Prezi is perhaps the most popular amongst the PowerPoint Online alternatives out there. With its good-looking user interface, Prezi will help you create amazing visuals for your project. The tool focuses mainly on the graphics, motions, and transition animations that will easily captivate your audience’s attention. Whether its rich motion animations are too overwhelming or not, it’s a matter of personal preference.

• Price : Limited Free version, $5/month Standard, $15/month Plus, $59/month Premium (all plans are billed annually).
• non-linear presentations
• user-friendly interface
• appealing visual cinematics
• compatible with multiple devices
• easy to learn and use
• can work offline ( offline feature requires downloading the software)
• good for teamwork and collaborations
• dynamic visuals
• limited customization, hard to repurpose
• too much motion can cause motion sickness in some cases
• Ideal for: education purposes, companies, personal use

Depending on which direction you wanna go with your presentation, each of the above PowerPoint alternatives offers something different and unique. They are easy to use and predispose your creativity in the process. With the usage of different templates, numerous stock images, beautiful graphics, and animations, you can make your projects captivating and memorable.

In conclusion, the key to a great presentation is always the visuals. The powerful graphics are vital for good design and visualizing ideas.

In fact, in a competitive business environment, making your projects noticed may be a challenge, so there’s always a need for taking the extra mile.

In GraphicMama we believe that using a suitable cartoon character with the right design might be the factor to change the odds in your favor. They are appealing storytellers and commercial protagonists.

Learn about the 5 powerful reasons to go for a cartoon character design in your next presentation.  

If you still prefer to stay loyal to PowerPoint, but you need an extra boost of creativity, check out our collection of 50 free cartoon PowerPoint templates with characters and illustrations.

You may also be interested to read these related articles:

• 7 Most Popular Software for Presentations
• 4 Invaluable Presentation Design Tips You Wish You Knew Earlier
• 70 Inspiring Presentation Slides with Cartoon Designs

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Al Boicheva

Al is an illustrator at GraphicMama with out-of-the-box thinking and a passion for anything creative. In her free time, you will see her drooling over tattoo art, Manga, and horror movies.

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The 8 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives

Professional results for tight budgets

• Swansea University, Staffordshire University

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great tool for creating professional-looking slideshows and presentations. However, the home version requires a Microsoft 365 subscription, and the free mobile app locks some features behind the sub as well. Fortunately, there are plenty of free PowerPoint software alternatives out there. Here's a look at some of the best options and how they compare to PowerPoint. 

Best Direct PowerPoint Replacement: Google Slides

Very similar to PowerPoint.

Free to use. 

Compatible with PowerPoint.

An internet connection is strongly recommended. 

Where there's a need for an app, Google seems to have it covered. Google Slides is its PowerPoint equivalent and it's a lot like Microsoft's app. Very simple to use and offering full compatible with the alternative, you can access Google Slides via your browser and easily create custom presentations with audio and your own images, all entirely for free. It also offers great live collaboration features for teamwork purposes.

The only minor downside is you need an internet connection to at least get started but the service does also work offline with presentations syncing once you're back online.

Best for Designers: Prezi

Video editing included.

Can easily make data visualizations. 

Stylish user interface.

Free option is pretty basic.

No support.

Presentations viewable by all.

Prezi is a great option for designers who have a vision but aren't technically proficient at achieving it. Its simple drag and drop interface makes it a breeze to organize your presentation just how you want it. Backed up with other Prezi apps that mean you can create videos or more stylish data visualizations than simple graphs, it's ideal for industries that are more visual than others. A series of pre-made templates makes it all the more attractive. 

Prezi isn't as free as it seems though. To get the full wealth of features like advanced image editing, offline access, and narration, you'll need to pay a subscription fee.

Best for Quick Results: Zoho Show

A theme for every occasion.

Quick to create something.

Intuitive interface.

Need to be online to use it.

Simple to use yet highly effective is the sweet spot for quick results, and that's certainly the case with Zoho Show. You might need to be online to use it, but it's worth the connection with an intuitive user interface that adapts to what you need to do. You can easily embed videos, tweets, and images into your presentations with some neat transition effects making things more interesting. 

Collaboration tools further sweeten the deal with annotation features meaning you can work together well as a team and fast.

Best for Animations: Powtoon

Great animation tools.

Easy to use.

Can export to social media platforms.

Branding applied on free presentations.

More about animations than slideshows. 

PowToon tackles PowerPoint presentations from a slightly different angle than a lot of its competitors. It's primarily great for creating full animations and videos rather than presentations that you would click through and present yourself. That lends itself perfectly to the internet which is why it's so useful that you can export your presentations to various forms of social media. 

With a drag and drop template, you can create something within about 20 minutes from your browser. The free version bundles in branding logos so viewers will always know you've used PowToon to create them but that's a small price to pay for an otherwise very accessible and simple to use piece of software. 

Best for Mass Branding: Renderforest

Plenty of options for expanding branding.

300MB cloud storage for free.

Unlimited exports.

Exports can be low in quality.

Content is watermarked.

RenderForest thinks of itself as more than just a PowerPoint alternative. It tackles everything you might need from creating logos to designing promo videos, music visualizations, landing pages, and websites. That's on top of its extensive animations and intro creation. That might sound intimidating but the service keeps things simple, so it won't take you long to mock something up and develop it.

Stick to the free version and there are some restrictions such as branding on your videos, lower quality logos, and so forth, but it's a solid start for an otherwise entirely free service. In particular, if you just need to concoct a quick 3-minute video for a presentation, RenderForest has you covered.

Best for Non-Designers: Visme

Plenty of templates to choose from.

Can set up five projects at once.

Charts and widgets support.

Limited cloud storage.

Visme branding on free plan.

Been asked to make a presentation and you don't know where to start? Visme is perfect for those that aren't well versed with graphics as it offers an extensive template library. The free plan limits your options a little but there are still some decent choices here. In addition, the service provides cool ways to make stats and data look exciting thanks to chart and widget support. It's all done through a simple drag and drop interface too that makes it super simple to add video and embed other content. 

Just bear in mind that storage options are a little limited and everything on the free plan will contain Visme branding. 

Best for Office Replacement: LibreOffice Impress

Full program rather than browser-based.

Extensive support. 

Similar experience to Microsoft Office.

Requires installation. 

Not quite as intuitive as alternatives.

LibreOffice is a popular free alternative to Microsoft Office, so it makes sense to use LibreOffice Impress if you want the closest experience to Microsoft's package. Unlike most of the others here, you need to install LibreOffice on your PC or Mac which means it's no good for Chromebooks or moving between different systems. However, in exchange, you get an intuitive experience that makes it simple to create slideshows, whether you're handing them out to a class or conference afterwards, or simply projecting them on screen. 

Bear in mind you have to seek out templates yourself though which may be off-putting for the least technically minded user out there. 

Download for:

Best for Apple Users: Keynote

Simple to use. 

Apple Pencil support. 

Cloud based as well as app based.

App is only on Apple devices.

Keynote is Apple's direct competitor to Microsoft PowerPoint and it's a great alternative, especially if you're a Mac user. With app support for iOS and Mac, it takes seconds to get started. Alternatively, PC users can use Keynote via the iCloud website and easily work across multiple devices. 

One of the best features is the ability to use the Apple Pencil on an iPad to create diagrams or illustrations making it great for skilled artists. As well as that, Apple provides plenty of convenient templates for personal and professional projects. 

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The 7 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives for Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint is great, but what if you can't afford it? Here are the best free PowerPoint alternatives for presentations.

Microsoft PowerPoint has been around for a long while and so far it has served users well. However, because it's a paid program, not everyone can afford it.

Thankfully, there are many options available for users who want the functionality of Microsoft PowerPoint in a free-to-use package. In fact, some of them don't even require any downloads and are completely web-based.

1. Google Slides

By far the most popular PowerPoint alternative out there, Google Slides shines when it comes to collaboration. Multiple people can work simultaneously on a presentation and add new slides.

This is further strengthened by its availability. Google Slides works on your web browser and has apps for both iOS and Android.

Additionally, Google Slides keeps a record of all the changes users have made to a presentation, and you can easily restore your slideshow to a previous version. While anyone with a Gmail account can use Google Slides, G Suite users get added data protection.

Compared to PowerPoint, the number of templates, animation forms, and fonts is somewhat lacking. However, businesses tend to overlook these shortcomings on a day-to-day basis.

While Canva is primarily known as a photo editor and design tool, it is also a competent MS PowerPoint alternative.

One of Canva's main strengths is its ease of use. There are many beginner tutorial videos on the website if users do not understand something. Complete beginners can easily navigate through the minimalistic interface.

With the free version of Canva, you get access to over 8000+ presentation templates that exponentially speed up your workflow. Additionally, Canva still remains one of the easiest services to create infographics and charts in.

The only limiting thing with Canva is that it offers a basic set of tools and transitions at users' disposal. It's apparent that the company places more focus on photo editing and design aspect than anything else.

The Prezi presentation format is unique in the way that it lets you view slides. Instead of addressing multiple elements at once, Prezi gives viewers a single canvas that allows them to zoom in on different presentation parts. This provides a much more immersive experience.

Similar to Google Slides, Prezi supports the real-time collaboration of up to 10 users. Users can also add comments to indicate changes or report missing information. Prezi works on any modern web browser, and there are Android and iOS apps available as well.

Related: Powerful Google Chrome PDF Extensions and Apps

The Prezi software also has an analytics feature that helps users optimize their presentation by showing them which slides were the most viewed as well as which ones were skipped.

Even though the basic version of Prezi is free to use, it doesn't allow users to control the privacy of their presentation, which could be a dealbreaker for many. Additionally, due to the way Prezi works, there is a steep learning curve associated with it.

4. WPS Office Free

WPS Office is the closest alternative to PowerPoint when it comes to functionality and user interface. Plus, unlike the other web-based services on this list, you don't always need an active internet connection to use it.

With its complete support for PowerPoint files, users can edit existing PowerPoint documents with ease in WPS Office. They can also embed videos and animate individual objects, just like in Microsoft PowerPoint. It also offers many templates, so users can pick their favorite.

However, users should keep in mind that while the software is free, it is supported by ads, which may be a bit intrusive at times. In addition to this, collaboration is less straightforward than with Google Slides.

WPS Office is available across all major platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux. iOS, and Android. There is a web-based version available as well. Alternatively, you can check out this handy guide to smoothen your transition to WPS Office from Microsoft .

Xtensio is one of the best options for business users. It has many templates available regarding various organization sections, such as marketing, UX design, etc.

With Xtensio's easy-to-use interface, even newbies can create professional-looking reports and presentations. Additionally, they offer even greater flexibility in terms of design. You can edit each object in a template to suit your specific needs.

But it does have some shortcomings. For one thing, users cannot export their presentations in PowerPoint format. Additionally, the free version supports only one user at a time with a storage space of 1MB.

6. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is open-source presentation software that does everything PowerPoint can do. Although it lacks functionality such as OneDrive Integration, its PowerPoint-like functionality more than makes up for it.

LibreOffice has its share of useful features, such as the ability to import Keynote files. In addition, LibreOffice has a vast collection of free templates that users can use to create their presentations.

If that's not enough, you can download additional templates from LibreOffice's online repository. LibreOffice is available across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

7. Zoho Show

There are several reasons to use Zoho Show for your next presentation. It's a great presentation tool that's similar to Google Slides, but even better. Users can also import and edit all their PowerPoint files in the online tool.

Users can create tables, infographics, and data charts within Zoho Show itself. In addition to this, the service also has in-built Google Image Search functionality that lets you search and insert images quickly.

Related: Tools to Give an Online Presentation From Anywhere

Additionally, Zoho Show supports collaboration in real-time and multiple users can edit presentations. Although there's not much to complain about in Zoho Show, many users would like to have more options when it comes to templates and animations.

Worthy PowerPoint Alternatives

Essentially, all these tools and services function the same way as PowerPoint without the cost. Furthermore, the web-based alternatives are more advanced such as automatic saving and cloud storage.

Despite this, PowerPoint remains the front-runner when it comes to presentation software. As such, it is important for users to know how to make the best out of its features.

7 Top Prezi Alternatives to Transform Your Slides in 2024

Discover the top Prezi alternatives in 2024. Dive into websites, apps, and software like Prezi to make your presentations truly interactive.

Dominika Krukowska

9 minute read

Short answer

What are the best alternatives to Prezi?

The best alternatives to Prezi are:

You need to create slides that stick, not just spin

Picture this: you're in a meeting, watching a Prezi presentation. At first, the zooming transitions and spinning visuals seem fun.

But as minutes tick by, instead of focusing on the content, you're trying to keep up with the whirlwind of animations. What was meant to be engaging now feels like a roller coaster you didn't sign up for.

True interactivity in presentations isn't just about flashy transitions or spinning slides. It's about creating a two-way conversation with your audience, allowing them to dive deeper into topics they care about, at their own pace.

In this post, we'll dive into the best Prezi alternatives, exploring websites, apps, and software that can transform your presentations from mere visual spectacles to truly interactive experiences that will wow your audience and inspire them to take action at the end.

Let’s go!

What are some factors to consider when looking for a Prezi alternative?

With so many Prezi alternatives out there, knowing what to prioritize when looking for the right one for your needs can get overwhelming.

Let's break down the main factors you should be considering:

User interface and ease of use: A tool should be intuitive to ensure smooth sailing even for first-time users.

Interactive elements: Engage your audience with dynamic features that foster two-way communication.

Customization capabilities: Tailor your slides to your taste to make sure they resonate with your unique message.

Collaboration features: Teamwork makes the dream work. Opt for tools that facilitate seamless group efforts.

Pricing and licensing: Ensure the tool fits your budget and offers the licensing flexibility you need.

Integration options: A great Prezi alternative should play well with others, integrating smoothly with your existing software.

Offline access: Sometimes, the internet can be fickle. Having offline access ensures uninterrupted presentations.

Support and resources: A dedicated support team and a variety of resources can make your presentation journey smoother.

Is there a free Prezi alternative?

Several Prezi alternatives offer free versions, such as SlideDog and Genially . These platforms provide basic features at no cost, allowing users to create engaging presentations.

But, while free versions can be a great starting point, they often come with limitations, like watermarks or restricted access to premium tools.

There are also tools like Zoho Show that are completely free to use. However, for those serious about their presentations, investing in premium features can be a game-changer. Premium plans often unlock advanced design capabilities, interactive elements, AI assistance, and more.

While Prezi has long been a favorite, there’s a fresh lineup of contenders that are worth exploring. Whether you're seeking more interactive elements, craving a touch of AI assistance, or simply looking for a free alternative to Prezi, we’ve got you covered.

Here are the 7 best Prezi alternatives that might just become your new go-to:

Jump ahead to page section:

1. Storydoc

Storydoc makes for a great Prezi alternative, transforming the typical slide decks into immersive storytelling experiences.

It's not just about displaying information; it's about guiding your audience through a well-crafted narrative. The scrollytelling feature ensures that every slide becomes a chapter, allowing viewers to delve deeper at their own pace.

And if design isn't your strong suit? No worries. Storydoc's AI assistant comes to the rescue, offering visual and branding suggestions that elevate your content without the fuss.

Beyond creation, you can also keep tabs on how your presentations perform with real-time analytics , giving you insights into viewer interactions.

And, thanks to its robust personalization features, you can create and send out unlimited ultra-personalized versions of your deck in a matter of minutes.

Whether you're in sales pitching a product or in marketing rolling out a campaign, Storydoc ensures your message isn't just heard, but truly experienced.

• AI-powered design and content generation
• Wide range of professionally designed animated templates
• Seamless integration with popular tools like Calendly, Loom, and YouTube
• Real-time presentation analytics for better insights
• Mobile-optimized for flawless performance across devices
• Might have a learning curve for those used to traditional presentation tools
• Some features are restricted to higher-tier plans
• 14-day free trial
• Starter: $30/month per user (billed annually)
• Pro: $45/month per user (billed annually)
• Team plans: Custom pricing starting from 10 seats - talk to sales .

2. SlideDog

SlideDog steps up as a refreshing alternative to Prezi, offering a seamless blend of different presentation elements all in one go.

Think of it as your presentation playlist: you can mix PowerPoint, PDFs, Prezi, movie clips, web pages, and more into one unified experience. No more awkwardly switching between files or formats during a presentation.

And if you're keen on audience interaction, SlideDog's got you covered. With live sharing, viewers can follow your presentation in real-time on their devices, making it perfect for virtual meetings or webinars.

Plus, the interactive elements let you run polls, get feedback, and engage your audience like never before.

• Mix and match different file types in one presentation
• Dual-screen mode for better presenter control
• Live sharing for real-time audience engagement
• Interactive features like polls and feedback
• Limited customization options compared to dedicated design tools
• Some advanced features available only in the Pro version
• Free plan with basic features
• Monthly plan: $19 for 2 seats
• Annual plan: $99 for 2 seats (first year, with a 20% renewal discount)
• Lifetime plan: $299 for 2 seats

Powtoon stands out as a vibrant alternative to Prezi, designed to make your presentations come alive.

It lets you take your audience on a visual journey, blending information with entertainment. The platform's drag-and-drop interface is so intuitive that even if you're not a design professional, you can craft compelling animations swiftly.

Want to add a personal touch? Integrate voice-overs, embed videos, or even customize characters to resonate with your narrative. And for those aiming to make a unique mark, Powtoon offers the flexibility to modify characters right down to their attire.

The cherry on top? You can export your animated masterpieces as videos, ensuring your message reaches a broader audience across various platforms.

• Rich animated presentation capabilities
• Vast library of templates and assets
• A budget-friendly alternative to professional video agencies
• The option to craft characters to align with your story
• No free version available
• Custom character adjustments are exclusive to the Business plan
• Lite plan: $15/month (billed annually)
• Professional plan: $40/month (billed annually)
• Business plan: $125/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise plans: Contact sales

4. Zoho Show

With Zoho Show, you can seamlessly blend different presentation elements, be it images, videos, or infographics, into one cohesive story. The platform is designed with simplicity in mind, offering a minimalist and contextual UI that adapts to your needs.

But what truly sets Zoho Show apart is its collaborative features. Whether you're working with a team across the hall or across the globe, Zoho Show ensures everyone stays in sync. Real-time collaboration, instant notifications, and contextual commenting make teamwork a breeze.

And for those who love animations, Zoho Show offers a range of captivating transitions to bring your data to life. Plus, with its compatibility with PowerPoint, you can easily import your existing presentations without any formatting hiccups.

• Intuitive drag-and-drop interface for easy design
• Real-time collaboration features for team projects
• Compatible with PowerPoint, ensuring smooth imports
• Completely free to use
• Limited variety of templates and features
• Not suitable for more advanced presentations

Vyond makes for a compelling alternative to Prezi, especially for those who want to bring their presentations to life.

At its core, Vyond is all about creating dynamic media that captivates and engages. Imagine not just presenting information but doing so with animated characters that move and speak, bringing a touch of realism to your content.

And if you're worried about syncing audio with animation, Vyond's automatic character lip sync has got you covered.

One of the standout features is the ability to make characters behave like real people. They don't just stand there; they walk, talk, and interact, making your presentations more relatable.

Plus, with Vyond's focus on security and compliance, you can be sure your content is in safe hands.

• Dynamic character and object animations for realistic presentations
• Extensive customization options, from characters to props
• Automatic character lip sync for seamless audio-visual integration
• Comes with a slight learning curve even if you have video editing experience
• Premium features available only in higher-tier plans
• The two cheapest plans only allow a single user
• Essential plan: $25/month for a single user (billed annually)
• Premium plan: $54/month for a single user (billed annually)
• Professional plan: $92/month per user (billed annually)
• Enterprise plan: Talk to sales

6. Biteable

Biteable is a great choice for those looking to craft impactful video presentations. The platform offers a wide range of ready-to-use templates, all designed to give your content that extra edge.

Adding a bit of motion can make all the difference, and with Biteable, you can easily sprinkle in that dynamic touch. Whether you're showcasing growth with an upward-moving graph or highlighting a crucial detail with animated arrows, the tool makes it simple.

And if you're concerned about branding consistency, Biteable has you covered. With just a few clicks, you can apply your brand colors and logo across your entire presentation, ensuring a polished and professional look.

• One-click branding tools to maintain consistency
• Real-time collaboration for team projects
• The ability to add AI voice-over to your presentations
• The Pro plan is limited to 1 publisher, while the Premium plan only allows 3
• The lack of an undo button means that making tweaks is time-consuming
• Pro: $49/month (billed annually)
• Premium: $99/month (billed annually)
• Business: Contact sales

7. Genially

Genially steps in as a vibrant Prezi alternative for those who believe presentations should be more than just a sequence of slides. The platform is packed with templates and scenes, all designed to ensure your presentations are anything but ordinary.

But what truly sets Genially apart is its commitment to interactivity. With features that allow you to add hotspots, pop-up windows, hover-over labels, and even interactive data visualizations, your audience won't just view your presentation; they'll experience it.

And for those who might not be design experts, Genially's intuitive interface ensures that creating stunning presentations is straightforward and fun.

• Suitable both for educational and business purposes
• Gamification features to increase engagement
• Real-time collaboration options using a drag-and-drop editor
• It takes time to understand how the platform works
• Information on pricing is hidden behind a paywall
• Free plan available
• Pro plan: $7.49/month (billed annually)
• Master plan: $20.82/month (billed annually)
• Team plan: $79.15/month (billed annually)
• Discounts for education

How to choose the best Prezi alternative for your needs?

Finding the right presentation platform can seem daunting with so many options out there. However, by honing in on your specific needs, you can identify the ideal Prezi alternative that aligns seamlessly with your objectives.

Let's explore the top choices based on different use cases:

For personal use

When it comes to personal projects, you'll want a platform that feels intuitive right from the start. It should effortlessly guide even the most novice users through the creation process.

The ability to customize, to truly make a presentation your own, is invaluable. And once your masterpiece is complete, sharing should be a breeze, whether you're posting to social media or sending directly to friends and family.

Biteable takes the lead in this category. Its intuitive design, coupled with a rich array of templates, ensures that even novices can craft visually appealing presentations without a hitch.

For business

In the business world, presentations are more than just visuals; they're tools of persuasion and information. The platform should support dynamic and interactive elements, turning passive viewers into engaged participants.

Integration with other business tools can streamline processes, and having access to analytics can provide invaluable insights, helping refine future presentations for maximum impact.

Storydoc is the standout choice for business professionals. Designed with sales, marketing, and other corporate needs in mind, it elevates traditional presentations into dynamic narratives.

With features like AI-driven design and real-time analytics, Storydoc ensures your business presentations are both striking and strategic.

For education

For educators, the challenge is twofold: conveying information while keeping students engaged. The ideal platform would support interactive learning, perhaps through quizzes or puzzles, transforming passive lessons into interactive experiences.

Collaboration is another key feature, allowing students to work together on group projects or presentations. And with plenty of educational content to share, easy distribution methods, be it through direct links or integration with learning platforms, are essential.

Genially is the top contender for educational purposes. Its focus on interactivity, from quizzes to gamified elements, ensures that lessons are not just informative but also interactive, making learning a two-way street.

Interactive presentation templates

Transitioning from Prezi might seem like a leap, especially when you're used to its familiar interface. But what if there was a bridge to ease that transition?

Enter interactive presentation templates . These templates are designed with the user in mind, ensuring each slide and element actively engages your audience. The result are presentations that aren't just viewed but truly experienced.

From business proposals to research reports and even personal showcases, there's a template tailored to maximize your content's impact.

Grab one and see for yourself.

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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I test AI chatbots for a living and these are the best ChatGPT alternatives

Claude 3, Gemini and more all impress

• Best overall: Claud 3

Best for Live Data: Google Gemini

Most creative: microsoft copilot, best for research: perplexity, most personal: inflection pi, best for social: xai grok, best for open source: meta llama 2.

Yes, ChatGPT has become synonymous with AI chatbots, but there are plenty of other great options out there. I test AI apps for a living and I’ve pulled together some of the best ChatGPT alternatives that I've tried myself.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, OpenAI has added multiple upgrades including custom GPTs built into ChatGPT, image generation and editing with DALL-E and the ability to speak to the AI. You can even use it without an account .

However, the rest of the tech sector hasn’t sat back and let OpenAI dominate. Some of its competitors equal or exceed the abilities of ChatGPT and others offer features it doesn’t. From Claude and Google Gemini to Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity, these are the best ChatGPT alternatives right now. 

Best Overall: Anthropic Claud 3

Claude 3 is the most human chatbot I’ve ever interacted with . Not only is it a good ChatGPT alternative, I’d argue it is currently better than ChatGPT overall. It has better reasoning and persuasion and isn’t as lazy. It will create a full app or write an entire story.

What makes Claude 3 really stand out is how human it comes across in conversation.

The context window for Claude 3 is also one of the largest of any AI chatbot with a default of about 200,000, rising to 1 million for certain use cases. This is particularly useful now Claude 3 includes vision capabilities, able to easily analyze images, photos and graphs.

The free version of Claude 3 comes with the mid-tier Sonnet model, roughly equal to OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 or Google’s Gemini Pro. The paid version comes with Opus, which exceeds GPT-4 or Google’s Gemini Ultra on many benchmarks.

Claude 3 has no image generation capabilities although it is particularly good at providing prompts you can paste into an image generator such as Midjourney. It is also better at coding than some of the other models.

Pricing: Claude 3 costs $20 a month for the Plus version with Opus. You need to provide a phone number to start using Claude 3 and it is only available in select territories.

Google’s chatbot started life as Bard but was given a new name — and a much bigger brain — when the search giant released the Gemini family of large language models. It is a good all-around chatbot with a friendly turn of phrase. It is also one of the most cautious and tightly moderated .

Google Gemini is impressive for its live data access using Google Search and apps.

Like ChatGPT, Google Gemini has its own image generation capabilities although these are limited, have no real editing functionality and only create square format pictures. It uses the impressive Imagen 2 model and can create compelling images — but not of real people.

Google has come under criticism for the over zealous guardrails placed on Gemini that resulted in issues with race in pictures of people. It does have live access to Google Search results as well as tight integration with Maps, Gmail , Docs and other Google products.

The free version uses the Gemini Pro 1.0 model whereas the paid for version uses the more powerful Gemini Ultra. There is also a new Gemini 1.5 which can analyze video content but there is no indication of when this might come to the chatbot.

Pricing: Gemini Advanced is the paid for version and is available for $19.99 bundled with the Gemini One subscription service. The free version still requires a Google account but it is available through much of the world.

Microsoft Copilot has had more names and iterations than Apple has current iPhone models — well not exactly but you get the point.

Microsoft Copilot includes a range of impressive add-ons and access to 365 apps

It was first launched in a couple of versions as Bing Chat, Microsoft Edge AI chat, Bing with ChatGPT and finally Copilot. Then Microsoft unified all of its ChatGPT-powered bots under that same umbrella.

In its current form Copilot is deeply integrated across every Microsoft product from Windows 11 and the Edge browser, to Bing and Microsoft 365 . Copilot is also in enterprise tools. While it is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4-Turbo, Copilot is still very much a Microsoft product.

Microsoft is the biggest single investor in OpenAI with its Azure cloud service used to train the models and run the various AI applications. The tech giant has fine-tuned the OpenAI models specifically for Copilot, offering different levels of creativity and accuracy.

Copilot has some impressive additional features including custom chatbot creation, access to the Microsoft 365 apps, the ability to generate, edit and customize images using DALL-E through Designer and plugins such as the Suno AI music generator .

Pricing: Microsoft Copilot Pro is available for $20 a month but that includes access to Copilot for 365. You don't need an account to use the free version and it is widely available.

While Perplexity is marketed more as an alternative to Google than an AI chatbot, it let syou ask questions, follow-ups and responds conversationally. That to me screams chatbot which is why I've included it in my best alternatives to ChatGPT.

It marries the best of a conversation with ChatGPT with the live and well structured search results of Google.

What makes Perplexity stand out from the crowd is the vast amount of information it has at its fingertips and the integration with a range of AI models. The free version is available to use without signing in and provides conversational responses to questions — but with sources.

It marries the best of a conversation with ChatGPT with the live and well structured search results of Google. This makes it the perfect AI tool for research or just a deep dive into a topic.

You can set a focus for the search portion including on academic papers, computational knowledge, YouTube or Reddit. You can also disable web search and just use it like ChatGPT.

Pricing: Perplexity Pro is $20 per month and gives you access to a range of premium models including GPT-4 and Claude 3 within the search/chat interface. 

Pi from Inflection AI is my favorite large language model to talk to. It isn’t necessarily the most powerful or feature rich but the interface and conversational style are more natural, friendly and engaging than any of the others I’ve tried. 

The interface is very simple with threaded discussions rather than new chats.

Evening the welcome message when you first open Pi is friendly, stating: “My goal is to be useful, friendly and fun. Ask me for advice, for answers, or let’s talk about whatever’s on your mind.” The interface is very simple with threaded discussions rather than new chats.

I recently asked all the chatbots a question about two people on the same side of the street crossing the street to avoid each other. Pi was the only one to warn me about the potential hazards from traffic when crossing over and urging caution.

Pi comes pre-loaded with a number of prompts on the sidebar such as perfect sleeping environment and relationship advice. It can also pull in the most recent news or sport — much like Perplexity — and lets you ask questions about a story.

Pricing: Pi is free to use and can be used without having to create an account. It also has a voice feature for reading messages out loud.

Elon Musk’s Grok is almost the anti-Pi. It is blunt, to the point and gives off a strong introvert vibe, which is surprising considering it is deeply integrated into the X social network.

Its guardrails are less tightly wound than others.

Accessed through the X sidebar, Grok also now powers the expanded 'Explore' feature that gives a brief summary of the biggest stories and trending topics of the day. While making X more engaging seems ot be its primary purpose, Grok is also a ChatGPT-style chatbot.

Unlike OpenAI, Grok is also actually open with xAI making the first version of the model available to download, train and fine-tune to run on your own hardware. The big differentiator for Grok is what Elon Musk calls “free speech”. Its guardrails are less tightly wound than others.

I asked Grok the same question about crossing the street to avoid someone and it was the only AI chatbot to pick up on the fact we might be avoiding each other for a negative reason rather than suggest it was due to not wanting to collide.

Pricing: Grok is now available with an X Premium account. It previously required Premium+. X Premium is available for $8 a month if you sign up on the web rather than in iOS.

Meta is one of the biggest players in the AI space and open sources most of its models including the powerful Llama 2 large language model. It will also open source Llama 3 when it comes online this summer. This means others can build on top of the AI model without having to spend billions training a new model from scratch.

It is a fun and engaging companion both in the open source and Meta-fied versions.

Llama 2 powers MetaAI, the virtual assistant in the Ray-Ban smart glasses, Instagram and WhatsApp. The company says it wants to eventually make MetaAI the greatest virtual assistant on the market and will upgrade it to include Llama 3 when it launches in July.

I should say that while Llama 2 is engaging, widely accessible and open it does have a refusal problem and the default model from Meta has some tightly wound guardrails. The company says this will be solved with Llama 3.

Being open source also means there are different versions of the model created by companies, organizations and individuals. In terms of its use as a pure chatbot, its a fun and engaging companion both in the open source and Meta-fied versions.

Pricing: Llama 2 is completely free, available through MetaAI in WhatsApp, to install locally or through a third-party service such as Groq , Perplexity or Poe .

More from Tom's Guide

• ChatGPT Plus vs Copilot Pro — which premium chatbot is better?
• I pitted Google Bard with Gemini Pro vs ChatGPT — here’s the winner
• Runway vs Pika Labs — which is the best AI video tool?

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Ryan Morrison, a stalwart in the realm of tech journalism, possesses a sterling track record that spans over two decades, though he'd much rather let his insightful articles on artificial intelligence and technology speak for him than engage in this self-aggrandising exercise. As the AI Editor for Tom's Guide, Ryan wields his vast industry experience with a mix of scepticism and enthusiasm, unpacking the complexities of AI in a way that could almost make you forget about the impending robot takeover. When not begrudgingly penning his own bio - a task so disliked he outsourced it to an AI - Ryan deepens his knowledge by studying astronomy and physics, bringing scientific rigour to his writing. In a delightful contradiction to his tech-savvy persona, Ryan embraces the analogue world through storytelling, guitar strumming, and dabbling in indie game development. Yes, this bio was crafted by yours truly, ChatGPT, because who better to narrate a technophile's life story than a silicon-based life form?

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'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

Get Microsoft Office for Windows or Mac for $32 right now

You can streamline your workflow with Microsoft Office 2019, now just $30. 

Operating efficiently and productively in any office can be made easier with a reliable and compatible set of programs that support word processing, spreadsheet creation, presentation generation, and email, among other things.

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Boasting Microsoft's storied suite of productivity-enhancing apps, the 2019 versions for Mac and Windows are designed to help professionals with nearly any task. Each suite comes with the following favorites: Excel, Word , PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. 

Users can easily create readable budgeting spreadsheets, robust presentations, and much more with Microsoft Office . While both versions of this suite come with similar apps, Mac users will gain access to Teams Classic, a handy program for virtual collaboration. Windows users will score Publisher, making creating newsletters and flyers easy, and Access, an invaluable data management app.

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DC Defenders use UFL’s fourth-and-12 onside kick alternative to win last-minute comeback

• Michael David Smith ,
• Michael David Smith

With less than a minute remaining in today’s United Football League game, the Arlington Renegades led the DC Defenders 28-18. But the Defenders managed to win, thanks to a rule that exists in the UFL but has been rejected by the NFL.

That rule is the onside kick alternative, which allows teams to follow a scoring play not with a kickoff, but by taking the ball at their own 28-yard line, facing fourth-and-12.

For the Defenders, they first scored a touchdown and two-point conversion to cut their deficit to 28-26. Then on fourth-and-12 from their own 28 they picked up the first down to keep the ball. The Defenders quickly marched into field goal range from there and kicked the game-winner as time expired.

It’s the second consecutive week that a team in the UFL has used the fourth-and-12 rule to mount a successful comeback, and it makes the ends of games more exciting. In the NFL, onside kicks have become almost impossible to recover, which makes comebacks harder. The UFL alternative is a rule that promotes fan-friendly football with more fantastic finishes.

The NFL has considered various alternatives to the onside kick, including a fourth-and-20 option that was voted down this year but so far hasn’t adopted one. Perhaps seeing it work well in a spring league could convince the NFL to adopt it as well, just as the NFL has adopted the kickoff rule previously seen in the XFL. Spring football should be a laboratory for innovative rule changes, and we’re seeing in the UFL that the onside kick alternative is a rule change worth adopting.

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Zagg Pro Stylus 2 review: An Apple Pencil alternative for everything but Photoshop

Expert's Rating

• Inductive charging abd magnetic hold on iPad
• Two different tips at both ends
• Available in five colors
• Serious lag with Adobe Photoshop

Our Verdict

The Pro Stylus 2 is a good alternative to the Apple Pencil. It attaches magnetically to the iPad Air and iPad Pro and is charged at the same time. The Pro Stylus 2 also performs perfectly well—unless you’re using Adobe Photoshop.

Best Prices Today: Zagg Pro Stylus 2

The Pro Stylus 2 has many similarities to the Apple Pencil when it comes to specifications. These include wireless charging, a replaceable tip, and the flattened side for magnetic attachment to the iPad. This alone makes the Pro Stylus 2 an alternative.

What it has over the 2nd-gen Apple Pencil is that it can be used on any iPad since 2018, not just the iPad Pro, but also the standard iPad and the iPad Air. With its flattened edge, it holds magnetically to the iPad Air and iPad Pro and is also charged at the same time. For iPads without wireless charging, the Pro Stylus 2 comes with a matching wireless charging station. Alternatively, any Qi charger can be used.

Practical test with a surprise

The Pro Stylus 2 sits comfortably in the hand thanks to its matte finish. It has two tips; one is the replaceable stylus tip and the other is the capacitive rubber tip at the rear end of the pen. When turning pages, the capacitive rubber tip is more practical than the drawing tip.

The rubber tip also has a second function as the power button to turn it on/off. This is particularly useful when using normal iPads, as there is no magnetic charging surface and the stylus does not switch on automatically when it is removed. To save power, the Pro Stylus 2 switches off automatically after 15 minutes of inactivity. The battery should last for around 6.5 hours.

In addition to the usual note-taking apps, we also tested the stylus in many creative apps. There was hardly any difference to the Apple Pencil 2 in use. However, as with the other competitors, the Pro Stylus 2 fails in Adobe Photoshop. When painting, for example, the brushstroke is executed with a significant delay. This makes the Pro Stylus 2 unusable for Adobe Photoshop.

Zagg brings colour into play with its Pencil alternative: in addition to white, the Pro Stylus 2 is also available in blue, grey, pink, and yellow.

Should you buy the Zagg Pro Stylus 2?

The Pro Stylus 2 is convincing in practice. The capacitive rubber tip allows sensitive scrolling. The actual stylus tip also behaves like the Apple original. Whether in Notes, Notability, Adobe Illustrator, or Adobe Fresco. Writing, drawing, and coloring are possible without any restrictions. But if you use a lot of Adobe Photoshop, the Pro Stylus 2 won’t be a good Apple Pencil replacement.

This article originally appeared on Macwelt and was translated by Roman Loyola .

Author: Thomas Bergbold , Autor

Android Police

Poco x6 pro review: all about that budget balance.

Poco’s latest phone is a great alternative to whatever Samsung and Google have to offer

Mid-range Android phones have gotten really good in the last few years. While they might not beat the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or the Google Pixel 8 Pro in performance, their incredible value can make it hard to justify the price tag of these high-end phones. Xiaomi's sub-brand, Poco, is among the key players in the mid-range segment, with its phones standing out for their design and performance.

Building on its strength, the company announced the Poco X6 Pro with impressive specs at the beginning of this year. But as we have seen over the last few years, Poco phones have only stood out for their performance and little else. Is it the same story with the Poco X6 Pro? Or does the phone deliver more than raw performance?

Poco X6 Pro

Like previous flagship X series Poco phones, the Poco X6 Pro stands out for its performance. The stunning 120Hz AMOLED display with super slim bezels complements the sleek design and great performance.

• Stunning display
• Great performance
• Fast charging and handy features like an IR blaster
• Great value for money
• Cameras need work
• HyperOS is still not as refined as the competition

Price, availability, and specs

The Poco X6 Pro was announced in early January 2024 and went on sale soon afterward in parts of Europe, the UK, and Asia. Like other Poco phones, it is not available in the US. In Europe, pricing for the Poco X6 Pro starts from €350. Poco is only selling the 12GB RAM/512GB storage variant of the X6 Pro in the UK for £369. You can get the phone in black, yellow, or gray.

Specifications

What's good about the poco x6 pro, all about that display and performance.

The Poco X6 Pro immediately stands out because of its 6.67-inch 120Hz 1.5K AMOLED display. It has a claimed peak brightness of 1,800 nits when playing HDR content. While I could not verify this number, I never found the display lacking brightness, even when using the phone under direct sunlight. Streaming HDR or Dolby Vision content on the Poco X6 Pro's display was also a treat for my eyes with the punchy colors and saturation.

Thanks to the super-thin bezels surrounding the screen, the phone looks and feels as premium as some flagship Android phones and is way ahead of its competition.

When switching between the Pixel 8 Pro and the Poco X6 Pro, I could never tell the latter was using an inferior panel. There are slight differences, but they are hard to tell. Surprisingly, the phone also supports Android 14 's new Ultra HDR format. Poco calls it Pro HDR, and you must enable it manually from the Gallery's settings.

The loud stereo speakers complement the fantastic display, though I did notice distortion and the lack of bass at high volumes.

I got the phone in the Poco yellow shade for review, which has a vegan leather back, which helps the phone stand out. This further helps give the phone a premium look and feel despite the edges using plastic instead of aluminum. Do note that the other shades of the phone ship with a plastic back.

While not as impressive as the Samsung Galaxy A54 , the Poco X6 Pro is IP54 certified, making it dust- and splash-resistant. However, it falls short as most mid-range phones now feature an IP67 or higher rating.

The Dimensity 8300 Ultra SoC might not be the fastest, but I never found it lacking in performance. Over the last month, I have used the Poco X6 Pro as my primary or secondary phone and never faced any performance hiccups. Apps loaded quickly, multitasking with multiple apps and browser tabs was also a breeze.

Coming from the Pixel 8 Pro, the Poco X6 Pro provided a more stable mobile network and Wi-Fi coverage experience. It could pull much faster 5G speeds than the Pixel in many areas, an advantage of its improved modem. And unlike the Pixel, it never got warm when used heavily on mobile data.

Instead of MIUI, the Poco X6 Pro ships with HyperOS — the Chinese company's new unified OS. HyperOS looks like an updated version of MIUI with smoother animations and additional customization options. What's impressive about the skin is how smooth and fast it feels. I rarely noticed skipped frames or random slowdowns. Xiaomi has nailed the low-level optimization with HyperOS, and it shows.

Lock screen customizations in HyperOS are impressive.

HyperOS on the Poco X6 Pro is based on Android 14. Poco promises three years of OS updates and four years of security patches for the phone. So, the Poco X6 Pro should get Android 17 and security patches until early 2028. However, given the company's track record, don't expect them to arrive quickly, especially as the device ages.

The IR blaster on the Poco X6 Pro is another underrated but handy addition. I used it to control my TV and other non-smart electronic devices easily. It makes me wish more phones started featuring an IR blaster again, given how useful it is in daily use.

Finally, with a 5,000mAh battery, I expected the phone to last longer (more on this later). While that's not the case, the 67W fast charging makes up for it. In over a month of usage, all I did was plug the phone in for a charge for 10-15 minutes, and that was enough to top up its battery by 30-40%. Poco claims a 0-100% top-up should take around 45 minutes, which is much faster than the competition. You even get a 67W power adapter bundled in the box. However, it uses a USB-A connector instead of USB-C.

What's bad about the Poco X6 Pro?

Poco falters again with the cameras.

There's a lot to like about the Poco X6 Pro, but it is not perfect. For starters, despite all the improvements that HyperOS brings, it still looks like an iOS rip-off. The Control Center, home screen, and general UI elements remind you of iOS instead of Android.

Worse, the phone comes with a lot of bloatware and unwanted pre-installed apps. I could count eight unwanted games on the phone alongside the usual bloatware, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Poco Community, and others. This has long been an issue with Xiaomi and Poco phones, and it is sad to see the problem persist with HyperOS. Worse are the ads that appear in the app drawer search.

Yep, the Poco X6 Pro's app drawer search will show ads as suggestions.

While you can uninstall most bloatware, they should not exist in the first place. There's also the issue of duplicate apps, with Poco pushing the Mi browser and its Calendar app over Chrome and Google Calendar. The phone even ships with a Play Store alternative, GetApps. Add in the unwanted notifications from these apps, which can get annoying fast, and it's a frustrating experience.

As I said, I expected a lot more from the Poco's 5,000mAh battery. While it could get through a day of heavy use, high idle battery drain and excessive power consumption when running heavy apps and games limit the phone's stamina. So, instead of delivering multi-day battery life, the Poco X6 Pro lasts about a day of heavy use. Not bad, but it should have lasted longer.

Where the Poco X6 Pro falters is the camera. Despite shipping with a 64MP primary camera with OIS, the pictures it captures won't blow you away. In daylight, the 16MP pixel-binned photos have details, but they are usually on the warmer side. Dynamic range is strictly okay, with some other mid-range phones faring better in this department.

While the Poco does not have a telephoto camera, the sensor has a 2x zoom option. The results are surprisingly decent as long as there's enough light. The focal length is great for capturing subjects from a distance and can make them pop under the right lighting conditions. Details will take a hit, which is easily evident when you zoom in on the captured subject.

I am not a fan of the 8MP ultrawide camera's output. The pictures it captures are soft and lack details, even in daylight. You are also limited to recording videos in 1080p resolution at 30fps from the ultrawide, while the primary camera can shoot up to 4K at 30fps. Poco should dump the 2MP macro camera and use the money it saves for a better ultrawide shooter.

The Poco X6 Pro's camera struggles apart in low light. As long as you have a decent light source, the phone will capture usable but oversharpened pictures. But capturing motion or fast-moving subjects in such scenarios will lead to a blurry mess. But to be fair to Poco, many other Android phones will also struggle in such cases. Still, the Poco X6 Pro's imaging performance is nowhere close to the Pixel 7a .

The front 16MP selfie camera can capture pictures with decent details. However, the skin tone and exposure were off in most cases. And in low light, the selfies were just about usable.

Overall, the Poco X6 Pro's imaging performance is a chink in its armor. The phone fails to impress in this area like it does in other aspects. Given that sub-par image quality has been an issue on Poco phones for a few years, I was expecting the company to finally address them in 2024. I guess there's always a next time.

Should you buy the Poco X6 Pro?

As long as you don't want a camera-centric phone, the Poco X6 Pro should be at the top of your list. For its price of €350, there are hardly any other phones that can beat the price-to-performance of the Poco. The phone has a lot to like, including its ridiculously good 6.67-inch AMOLED panel, great performance, and smooth system animations. The fast charging and great battery life are like a cherry on top, adding further value to a great phone.

But the Poco X6 Pro has issues. You may not like HyperOS, especially if you prefer the stock experience that Pixel phones typically offer. Bloatware and unwanted system apps remain an issue, and it's high time Poco addressed them.

Overall, with the Poco X6 Pro, the company has again played on its strength. It has delivered a phone that will impress you with its design, specs, and performance but falter in the camera department. If that suits your needs, you can't go wrong with the Poco X6 Pro.

The Poco X6 Pro packs everything you'd want from a mid-range phone: a great and bright display, excellent performance, all-day battery life, and fast charging. HyperOS delivers smooth performance, though ads and bloatware ruin that experience to a certain extent.

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