types of presentation software other than powerpoint

The best presentation software in 2024

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 used 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 25 of the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

The best presentation software

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Gamma for conversational AI features

Mentimeter for audience engagement

Tome 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 interface. 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 most apps now offer AI features in one way or another, it isn't a universal feature yet—and some apps' AI features leave a lot to be desired. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict must-have for this year (though it probably will be a requirement next time I update the article). That means I've still included some apps that don't offer AI—if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images and text 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.

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, and interactive content. 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 AI tools aren't groundbreakingly useful

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.

Canva has added a number of AI-powered tools , but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. The Magic Design tool, for example, isn't much more useful than the many pre-designed templates already available, while Magic Write is basically just white-labeled ChatGPT. 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 $120/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

If you're looking for a capable free presentation tool with a more affordable upgrade, Zoho Show is worth a look. It's completely free for most features, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates. Plus, you can automate Zoho Show by connecting it with Zapier .

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

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 experience 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 more than 20 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 re-tested the generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) this year. 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 pull in relevant images.

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 a generative AI tool that builds a whole pitch deck based on your website. 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 can only be billed annually.

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's generative AI feature works ok, but it's more useful as a wireframe. When I asked it to create a presentation about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, for example, the resulting content read a lot like a student writing a term paper in the broadest strokes possible to avoid doing any actual research.

Prezi pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans start at $7/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 $15/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, 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

Excellent generative AI feature

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 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.

Pitch also offers one of the most impressive generative AI features on this list. It still struggles to pull in relevant images, but I found the AI-generated written content and design to be top-notch.

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; paid plans start at $22/month for 2 users with additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best presentation app for conversational AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Conversational 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 conversational AI 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 produces a very useful jumping-off point. (Last year, it was by far the best, but this year, other apps are catching up.)

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, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the Plus plan for $8/user/month to get unlimited AI credits, remove Gamma branding, and more.

The best presentation app for audience engagement

Mentimeter (web).

Mentimeter pros:

Tons of audience engagement features

Simple for participants to interact

Mentimeter cons:

Less granular customizability

Bit of a learning curve

If you need to engage with an audience during your presentation, Mentimeter makes that easy. The app is designed around interactive elements like quizzes, surveys, Q&As, sliders, and more (even a Miro whiteboard!).

Each of these is included in a number of different, professional-looking templates, so you can build a fully interactive presentation super quickly.

When it's time to present, your audience members can scan the QR code with their phone cameras or type in the URL and access code to participate. There's one code per presentation (so they won't have to do this on every slide), which gives access to each slide as you move through the presentation.

There are two main drawbacks to this one, though. First, there's a bit of a learning curve and less familiar editing interface (but I found it pretty easy to learn with some practice). The other drawback is that you can't get as granular with the visual customization as you can with many other presentation tools.

Mentimeter pricing: Free plan includes 50 participants per month and 34 different slide types; upgrade to the Basic plan for $11.99/presenter/month to get unlimited participants and slide types, private presentations, and more.

The best presentation app for generative AI

Top-tier generative AI features

Simple, customizable templates

Intuitive doc-style editor

There's definitely a learning curve

Tome is one of the new additions to this list that I'm most excited about. If you're looking for generative AI that just genuinely works , it's definitely worth a look. The editor is a bit more stripped down than most presentation apps but intuitive nonetheless—it's almost a cross between your standard deck editor and a Notion-style doc.

To generate an AI deck, click Generate with AI in the top right, and either write your own prompt or choose from the example prompts that cover a handful of common use cases, like sales enablement and company pitches. Edit or approve the suggested outline, then generate the full presentation.

From there, you can edit each slide as a doc via the right-hand menu—without limits on how much information you can include. During the presentation, you simply size down any slides that take up more than the standard amount of space. It's super simple but somehow feels revolutionary in a presentation app.

Tome pricing: Free plan available for manual editing without AI; upgrade to the Professional plan for $16/user/month to use the generative AI and design tools, plus engagement analytics, branding tools, 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 really been focused on their respective presentation solutions just yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll re-test tools like Copilot for PowerPoint and Gemini for Google Slides to see what new features may be 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.

What about PowerPoint and Google Slides add-ons?

While I focused my testing on tools with full feature-sets—those that can serve as your sole presentation tool—there are a ton of add-on tools you can use atop big name tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides.

If you're looking to expand what you can do with PowerPoint or Google Slides, apps like Marq (formerly Lucidpress), Plus AI , Slidesgo , and Simplified can help you do things like access additional templates, save branded assets, and generate AI presentations from the app you're already using.

Related reading:

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 April 2024.

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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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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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Presentation Software for 2022: 10 Best PowerPoint Alternatives

Imagine the last PowerPoint presentation you created. You probably spent way too much time on the minute design details like adjusting borders and aligning text boxes. PowerPoint certainly can be a hassle, especially if you don’t have advanced knowledge of the software and its features. 

It’s no wonder why so many people are seeking PowerPoint-alternative presentation software options. Tools like Beautiful.ai, Visme and Prezi save time and plenty of time and frustration when designing presentations, plus many of the tools allow the most amateur of designers to craft masterful and engaging presentation designs.

With so many PowerPoint-alternative software options available, how can you choose the best one for presentation? It can be hard to know which is better than the next. To help out our readers, we’ve combined another list of PowerPoint alternatives for 2022. 

Here, we’ve compiled basic information about 10 different alternative presentation programs to PowerPoint. Which is your favorite?

1. Beautiful.ai

We hate to brag, but our PowerPoint-alternative software is perfect for designing professional-level presentations in a fraction of the time it takes to create a mediocre PowerPoint slide deck. By choosing to advanced presentation software like Beautiful.ai , users are handing over the bulk of the design work to artificial intelligence. Just add your content to slide templates and watch as the AI automatically adjusts your format based on the principles of good design.

Beautiful.ai users never waste valuable time aligning elements, establishing margins or balancing fonts. Users also benefit from a vast library full of thousands of free stock images, icons and logos, so they don’t need to dedicate time to seeking and importing images from an outside source. With Beautiful.ai, users even can add extra pizzazz to their presentations by customizing engaging infographics and adding eye-catching animations. Users don’t even have to build their presentations from the ground up, since Beautiful.ai features a plethora of customizable presentation templates , curated to fit a variety of topics and purposes.

2. Google Slides

Do you have a Google account? If so, then you already have access to the search giant’s own PowerPoint-alternative presentation software. Anyone with a Google account can access Google Slides from within the company’s suite of productivity applications . In terms of its user interface, Google Slides resembles PowerPoint in many ways, but presentations can be shared among Google users, making it a popular collaboration tool. Google Slides has its limits, however, since only a limited library of shapes and icons are available to add without seeking and importing the images from elsewhere.

Visme’s PowerPoint-alternative presentation software helps users design slide decks, infographics, interactive charts and other visual content. The easy-to-use cloud-based tool allows users to move elements around the workspace, and new content can be added by dragging and dropping it into place. Visme users can build presentations from scratch by starting with a blank canvas, or they can customize a variety of templates. The presentation software also features a collection of thousands of icons, images and data visualizations, and users even can choose to boost engagement by adding elements like video, audio and GIF files.

4. Zoho Show

With Zoho’s PowerPoint-alternative presentation software, users can create, edit, share and deliver presentations from anywhere while collaborating with their teams. Zoho Show is popular thanks to its minimalist and contextual user interface. The program recognizes the task the user is conducting, and automatically provides the most relevant options to reduce overall clutter on the screen. The presentation software also features more than 100 templates for a variety of topics and purposes, from startup pitch decks and business proposals to sales decks and project management presentations.

Prezi’s presentation software is a true alternative to PowerPoint . Rather than design standard slide decks, Prezi users create animated, non-sequential presentations that highlight topics and uncover subtopics with an engaging zoom feature. The PowerPoint-alternative software is an enticing alternative for creating visual presentations, but it’s probably better suited for experienced presentation designers thanks to its unique design. Still, Prezi is a perfect choice for presenters seeking a more creative way to capture an audience's attention.

6. FlowVella

Hoping to design a presentation on your smartphone or tablet? FlowVella is a popular presentation creation platform with a special focus on mobile device support. The PowerPoint-alternative presentation software allows users to create dynamic and interactive visual content from anywhere. Presentations created with FlowVella are especially engaging to audiences since they often combine words, images, video, links, galleries and PDFs to create an interactive story. The software is simple to use thanks to dozens of templates and a convenient drag-and-drop feature for adding content.

7. Haiku Deck

A free app for making attractive presentations, Haiku Deck is both simple and fun to use. The presentation design software uses artificial intelligence to transform ideas into eye-catching slide decks. This PowerPoint-alternative presentation tool is designed for users who want to craft presentations with simple messages using basic templates. And the drag-and-drop interface makes it a tool even amateur designers can master in no time at all.

Canva offers much more than an alternative to PowerPoint. Users can rely on the visual design platform to create social media graphics, posters, invitations, business cards and all sorts of other documents along with presentations. Canva features thousands of professional templates, images and other content elements, as well as features to help teams collaborate with ease. The software tool’s drag-and-drop interface makes it simple for non-designers to customize templates and even edit photos with little experience.

9. Genially

Traditional slide decks are designed to be led by a presenter. That worked great until so much of the global workplace went remote. Genially is a popular PowerPoint-alternative software choice because its interactive features and animated templates are perfect for building self-led presentations. Thanks to a variety of interactive buttons, designers can show their audiences additional context, skip to specific deck pages and even navigate to external locations with links. Genially features a variety of customizable templates on topics ranging from business proposals to social media presentations, making it a simple choice for amateur presentation designers.

No sooner did the PowerPoint-alternative presentation software launch in 2020, than it was already called a “PowerPoint killer” within the sector. It shouldn’t be any surprise, since Pitch was created as a tool for non-designers to build powerful and attractive pitch decks. The presentation software features a vast library of presentation templates and plenty of options for collaboration. Plus, Pitch’s customizable presentation styles allow users easily to stay on brand throughout their entire pitch decks. Plus, Pitch presentations can be integrated with Google Sheets, Google Analytics and other productivity programs.

Check out the best presentation software for 2021 and 2019 .

Samantha Pratt Lile

Samantha is an independent journalist, editor, blogger and content manager. Examples of her published work can be found at sites including the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and Buzzfeed.

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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.

15 PowerPoint Alternatives for High-Stakes Presentations

Learn what the best PowerPoint alternatives are and discover slides tools to create cool presentations that are way better than PowerPoint.

Dominika Krukowska

14 minute read

Short answer

What are the best alternatives to PowerPoint?

The best alternatives to PowerPoint are:

• Beautiful.ai
• Microsoft Sway

Your presentations deserve more than just PowerPoint

Remember the last time a PowerPoint presentation truly wowed you? Hard to recall, right? That's because most slide decks, no matter how well-intentioned, tend to blur together after a while.

As a result, your message goes unnoticed, your efforts wasted, and those high-impact opportunities? They slip right through your fingers.

But here's some good news: a new era of interactive presentation tools is here, ready to transform the way we share ideas. By choosing these dynamic alternatives to PowerPoint, you can truly engage your audience, make your message resonate, and achieve your goals.

Let’s dive in!

What’s wrong with PowerPoint?

PowerPoint has long been the presentation tool of choice, but it's starting to show its age. Here's why:

Standardized slide set with a 16:9 aspect ratio

PowerPoint's 16:9 aspect ratio is familiar, but it can limit creativity. When every presentation looks the same, it's hard to stand out.

No mechanisms to keep you from breaking the design

While PowerPoint offers design freedom, it lacks safeguards. This can lead to cluttered slides that confuse rather than clarify.

Generic templates

Relying on the same templates can make your content feel stale. Freshness matters, and predictability can lead to disinterest.

Limited interactivity options

Modern audiences expect to interact with content. PowerPoint's limited interactive features can't match today's dynamic tools.

Passive engagement

PowerPoint often results in a one-way flow of information. Without deeper engagement, your message might just skim the surface.

If you want to learn more, check out our article on why PowerPoint is bad for the job .

What makes modern alternatives better than PowerPoint?

The world of presentation platforms is evolving, and modern tools are stepping up in ways PowerPoint can't match.

Here are the main features that make these PowerPoint alternatives a better choice:

Rich library of pre-built templates: Dive into diverse designs, ready to customize and make your own.

Data visualization options: Turn complex data into clear, compelling visuals with ease.

Multimedia: Embed videos, audio, and more for a multi-sensory experience.

Interactive elements: Engage your audience with clickable features and dynamic content.

Narrated design (Scrollytelling): Guide viewers through a visual journey and let them explore at their own pace.

Collaboration options: Team up in real-time, making content creation a collective effort.

Optimized for mobile: Make sure your content shines, whether on a desktop or a smartphone.

Software integrations: Seamlessly connect with other tools and optimize your workflow.

Content analytics: Gain insights into viewer engagement and adjust for maximum impact.

AI-guided content: Let artificial intelligence steer your content strategy for optimal results.

AI-guided design: Benefit from AI-driven design suggestions, enhancing visual appeal.

Personalization with dynamic variables: Connect to your CRM and tailor content to individual viewers with just a few clicks.

Centralized content management: Keep all your materials in one organized, accessible place.

Web-based content: Access and share your content from anywhere, anytime.

Version control: Maintain authority over your final version and keep the design consistent.

Access control: Set parameters like gated access, time limits, or location-based viewing.

Here's what a static PPT and an interactive deck look like side by side:

Is there a free alternative to PowerPoint?

Absolutely! While some presentation tools like Storydoc or Visme offer free trials or basic plans, there are platforms like Zoho Show that are entirely free to use. Exploring these PowerPoint alternatives can provide fresh, dynamic ways to present without breaking the bank.

In a world where innovation drives success and audiences crave novelty, relying solely on traditional tools like PowerPoint may not cut it anymore. The landscape of presentation software has evolved, offering diverse alternatives that cater to different needs, styles, and functionalities.

These alternatives not only challenge the status quo but also redefine the way we present and engage with our audience.

If you're looking to step up your presentation game and explore beyond the limitations of PowerPoint , let's dive into the top alternatives:

Jump ahead to page section:

1. Storydoc

Storydoc is reshaping how we create presentations, all thanks to AI. This interactive presentation maker turns your usual slides into engaging, interactive stories.

With its unique approach to narrated design, or "scrollytelling," it breaks away from the constraints of conventional presentations, letting your audience dive into the content at their own speed.

And with AI by your side, Storydoc helps fine-tune your brand's appearance and offers content suggestions, making sure you have a top-notch presentation ready quickly.

Once done, you can integrate it with your CRM and use dynamic variables to create countless personalized versions in just a few clicks. And the cherry on top? After sharing, you can peek into the analytics to gain insights on what's clicking with your viewers and what's missing the mark.

• AI-backed design suggestions
• Personalize presentations at scale
• Perfect for any device
• Integrates with tools like calendars and live chats
• Dive deep into presentation analytics
• The charm of interactivity might not translate well in printed versions
• Might take a minute for those used to traditional tools
• 14-day free trial
• Starter: $30/month per user (billed annually)
• Pro: $45/month per user (billed annually)
• For teams: Reach out to sales

2. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is all about transforming passive listeners into active contributors. It's not just about presenting; it's about conversing. With tools like real-time word clouds, polls, and quizzes, it makes sure that everyone's voice is heard, making sessions more interactive and memorable.

Whether you're conducting a business meeting, teaching a class, or running a workshop, Mentimeter adds that spark to make it lively, inclusive, and productive.

• Tools like word clouds and live polls keep the audience engaged
• Creates a sense of inclusivity and participation
• Versatile for various settings: work, education, or workshops
• Seamless integration with platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams
• There's a learning curve for those new to interactive presentation tools
• Some might wish for more customization in templates
• Free plan available
• Basic plan: $11.99 per presenter/month
• Pro plan: $24.99 per presenter/month
• Campus plan: Reach out to sales
• Discounts for teachers and students

Canva is more than just a presentation tool; it's a one-stop-shop for all your creative projects. Whether you've been designing for years or you're just dipping your toes, Canva's user-friendly interface makes the process a breeze.

From social media graphics to business cards, Canva has a template for almost everything, but presentations remain one of its strongest assets. Thanks to the drag-and-drop feature and a rich library of elements, there’s no fumbling around; just pick, place, and voila! Your design is ready.

Beyond just design, Canva promotes collaboration. Teams can come together, working on a project at the same time. And since it's cloud-based, you can access your designs anytime, anywhere.

• Wide range of design options for various needs
• Simple to use, great for both beginners and seasoned designers
• Work on your designs from any device with Internet access
• Solid free version to get you started
• Premium design elements are reserved for Pro users
• With so many design choices, it might feel a bit much for some
• Pro plan: $14.99 billed monthly or $119.99 billed annually
• Canva for Teams: Talk to sales
• Free for education and NGOs

4. Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai is a presentation tool that takes the guesswork out of presentation design. It starts you off with smart templates, so you're never faced with the scary blank slide.

As you add content, the platform’s AI adjusts everything – from layout spacing to color choices. It's like having a designer by your side, making sure your slides always look polished.

Need to collaborate? Share slides with your team and get everyone on the same page. Want to keep your brand consistent? The brand control feature guarantees your slides always match your company's look.

Beautiful.ai does most of the work for you, but you’re always in the driver’s seat.

• AI-driven design that simplifies slide creation
• Templates that adapt, making design intuitive
• Collaborate seamlessly with shared slides
• If you're a design purist, the automation might feel limiting
• Customization has its limits, so ultra-specific designs might need more tweaks
• Might not be the fit for super-detailed slide decks
• Free 14-day trial
• Pro plan: $12/month (billed annually)
• Team plan: $40/user/month (billed annually)
• For a single project: $45
• Enterprise plan: Talk to sales

5. Slidebean

Slidebean is a game-changer for those diving into the world of startups. It's an AI-driven platform that makes the process of crafting pitches easy.

Start with a basic outline using its user-friendly editor, and watch as Slidebean turns your content into slides that resonate.

While AI does the initial setup, you're always in control, tweaking slides or using their templates to shape your presentation just right.

• Tailored for startup challenges
• Perfect blend of AI automation and user customization
• Collaborate with experts to refine your pitch
• Might be too much for basic presentation needs
• Some design elements could use an update
• Basic plan: Free
• All-Access plan: $199 annually
• Accelerate plan: $499 annually

6. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a presentation tool that effortlessly blends functionality with flair. Its intuitive interface lets you easily craft slides, and with a collection of over 100 templates, you're set for any occasion, be it a startup pitch or a business proposal.

Collaboration is a standout feature in Zoho Show. Work on slides in real-time, receive instant updates, and exchange feedback. Want to add a touch of creativity? There are animations, custom shapes, and multimedia options to explore.

Got an existing presentation? No worries. Slidebean smoothly imports PPTX, PPT, and other popular formats, making sure your transition is seamless.

• Simplified design for easy slide creation
• Real-time collaboration tools to keep teams in sync
• Compatible with popular presentation formats
• A price tag that's hard to beat: Free
• Template variety might feel limited to some
• There are tools with more advanced features out there

Visme is a go-to tool for building presentations from scratch using an extensive collection of industry-specific templates, which means that your content always feels fresh.

If visuals are your thing, Visme's got you covered with over 1.5 million crisp images, vibrant charts, and engaging data widgets. And, if you want to add a touch of your brand's essence, you can customize decks with your unique fonts and colors.

Plus, with handy tools like presenter notes and a special mode for presenting, you're all set to win over your audience, whether they're right in front of you or tuning in online.

Just a heads-up: while there's a sea of design choices, a few templates lean more towards style than clarity. But with a bit of tweaking, you'll find the sweet spot.

• Intuitive with a wide range of templates
• Team collaboration made easy
• Branding tools for that consistent look and feel
• Might be overwhelming for newcomers due to the variety of design choices
• Some designs prioritize style over clarity
• Premium features require a paid subscription
• Starter plan: $12.25/month (billed annually)
• Pro plan: $24.75/month (billed annually)
• Visme for Teams: Talk to sales

8. Microsoft Sway

Microsoft Sway is where creativity meets simplicity. This digital storytelling app is designed to help you craft interactive reports, presentations, newsletters, and more.

Its built-in design engine makes your content look professional, whether you're using images, text, videos, or other multimedia. The best part? Sway makes sure your creations are optimized for any screen size.

Plus, with seamless integration with Office 365, you can easily transform content from Word or OneNote into a dynamic Sway presentation.

• Easily integrates with Office 365 tools
• Adapts to any screen for optimal viewing
• Share or co-edit with just a URL
• Requires a Microsoft account to use
• Limited customization options
• Cannot be used offline
• Available with Office 365 subscriptions; the price depends on your plan
• Specific details can be found on the Microsoft Office website

9. DesignCap

DesignCap is a versatile platform that brings your visual ideas to life. Need a captivating presentation? Or perhaps an infographic that speaks volumes? DesignCap's got you covered.

Explore its template library, and you'll find designs tailored for every occasion. But it's not just about templates. With a variety of stock images, icons, and customizable modules, you have all the tools at your fingertips to craft unique visuals.

The best part? Its intuitive interface means you spend less time figuring things out and more time designing.

• Variety of resources: stock images, icons, and customizable modules
• Intuitive drag-and-drop design experience
• Affordable pricing makes it perfect for beginners
• Better suited for beginners, as it lacks more advanced features
• It’s more geared towards creating flyers than presentations
• Limited image bank
• Basic plan: $4.99/month (or $59.88 billed annually)
• Plus plan: $5.99/month (or $71.88 billed annually)

Ludus is a presentation tool that focuses on teamwork. Whether you're collaborating in real-time or sharing resources among teams, Ludus makes the process easier.

Dive into their platform, and you'll find a range of features, from templates to start with or the option to create from the ground up. Ludus comes with a rich set of tools, including the ability to integrate content from platforms like YouTube, Unsplash, and design apps like Figma.

Want to add a personal touch? Record your voice over your slides. Plus, with live collaboration and custom blocks, Ludus gives you the flexibility to design the perfect presentation.

• Real-time collaboration for team projects
• Integrations with platforms like YouTube, Unsplash, and Figma
• Custom domains for a branded presentation experience
• Advanced design tools for creative freedom
• Slight learning curve for those new to the platform
• Extensive feature set could be overwhelming for those seeking basics
• Some users might experience performance issues with content-heavy presentations
• 30-day free trial
• Teams of 1-15 people: $149.99/year
• Teams of 16 people and over: Talk to sales

Vyond is your go-to platform for making animated videos that turn complex messages into relatable tales. With a wide collection of templates, it's a breeze to create anything, from a corporate presentation to an explainer video or an educational clip.

But, Vyond doesn't just stop at animations; it lets you enhance your stories with a blend of photos, videos, and even 3D elements. And if you've got a unique voice to share? You can use their voice-over tools and create customizable characters to match your narrative.

• A variety of templates for every story you want to tell
• Enrich animations thanks to content integrations
• Voice-over tools and character customization to make your story truly yours
• Premium features might stretch your budget
• There's a learning curve, especially if you're new to video editing
• Basic plans are limited to single users
• Essential plan: $25/month for 1 user (billed annually)
• Premium plan: $54/month for 1 user (billed annually)
• Professional plan: $92/month per user (billed annually)
• Enterprise plan: Contact sales for details

12. Powtoon

Powtoon is where creativity meets animation. This platform lets you create lively presentations and videos, blending your messages with vibrant animations.

With Powtoon's intuitive drag-and-drop interface, even those without a design background can whip up eye-catching animations in no time. For a personal touch, you can also integrate voice-overs, embed videos, or even play around with customizable characters to make your content pop.

And if you're aiming for a unique look, Powtoon lets you tweak characters down to their outfits. Once you're set, exporting your creations as videos means your story can reach audiences far and wide.

• Customize characters to resonate with your narrative
• More cost-effective than hiring a professional video agency
• Versatile enough for various industries and purposes
• No free version on offer
• Custom character features exclusive to the Business plan
• Seasoned designers might need more advanced animation options
• Lite plan: $15/month (billed annually)
• Professional plan: $40/month (billed annually)
• Business plan: $125/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise plans: Reach out to sales

13. FlowVella

FlowVella offers a fresh approach to slide design, allowing you to stitch together text, images, and videos into a cohesive narrative.

But it doesn't stop there. You can also embed interactive links and galleries, giving your audience the opportunity to be a part of the journey. Need to share detailed data? No worries, as you can easily incorporate PDFs.

And for those looking to transform public spaces like museums or exhibitions, FlowVella's feature to turn iPads into interactive kiosks is a game-changer.

• Intuitive editor that's easy to use
• Functions both offline and online for flexibility
• The option to share presentations with custom URLs
• The free tier includes FlowVella's branding
• Might leave design pros wanting a bit more
• Premium plan: $60/year (billed annually)
• Pro plan: $200/year (billed annually)

14. SlideDog

SlideDog is a presentation tool that blends various presentation elements for a smooth delivery. Think about merging PowerPoints, Prezis, PDFs, and other media without the awkwardness of toggling between programs.

It lets you curate a playlist of all your presentation elements, with a smooth transition between each. No more awkward pauses or switching between apps. Plus, its live sharing feature means your audience can tune in from their devices in real-time.

And if you're looking to set up continuous slideshows in public spaces, SlideDog doubles up as a digital signage solution.

• Combine diverse file types into a single presentation
• Boost engagement with real-time sharing
• Manage your presentation from any device with web access
• On-the-fly edits can be a bit challenging
• Available exclusively for Windows users
• 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

Pitch is a presentation platform that's all about efficiency, collaboration, and aesthetics. Whether you're starting with a template or crafting from scratch, Pitch offers smart editing features to guide your creative process. Each slide becomes a visual journey, enriched with photos, icons, and videos.

Teamwork is a breeze with real-time editing and feedback loops. And once you're ready to share? Just send a link and tap into the power of real-time analytics to understand how your content resonates with your audience.

• Collaborate in real-time with ease
• Affordable, making it a top pick for individuals or small businesses
• Analytics panel offers insights into how your presentation is received
• Limited range of templates
• Lacks AI assistance
• Advanced analytics require a plan upgrade
• Starter plan: Free
• Pro plan: $8/member per month
• Enterprise plan: Contact sales

How to choose the best PowerPoint alternative for your needs?

Navigating the world of presentation tools can be a bit overwhelming, especially with so many great options out there. But don't worry, here's a simple guide to help you pinpoint the best fit based on your specific needs:

For personal use

When it's just you, or perhaps a small group, you'll want a tool that's straightforward, yet versatile. Look for platforms that offer a range of templates, are user-friendly, and won’t break the bank.

Tools like DesignCap and Canva shine here. They come with intuitive interfaces and a variety of design options, making it easy to craft presentations, even if you're not a design pro.

For business

In the business world, presentations often serve as a bridge between you and potential clients, investors, or stakeholders. You'll need a platform that's not only visually appealing but also offers features like analytics, real-time edits, and integration options.

Storydoc is a front-runner here. Its AI-powered design capabilities and focus on storytelling make sure that your presentations are not only informative but also unforgettable. Plus, with features like CRM integrations and robust analytics, you're always a step ahead.

For education

Engagement is the cornerstone of effective learning. Tools that offer multimedia embeds, interactive quizzes, and dynamic animations are essential.

Mentimeter shines in this space, offering a range of education templates, the option to host Q&A sessions, brainstorm ideas, and gather immediate feedback from students.

Interactive presentation templates

Ditching PowerPoint doesn't mean you're diving into the unknown. Interactive presentation templates are your safety net, making your shift seamless and straightforward.

These templates are designed to feel familiar right off the bat, so you won't spend ages trying to figure things out. They're not your typical PowerPoint slides either. They come packed with stylish designs, captivating interactive features, and a flow that naturally steers your storytelling.

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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Communications

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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Alternatives to PowerPoint | 2024 Comparison Revealed!

Alternatives

Anh Vu • 26 Mar 2024 • 16 min read

What to use instead of PowerPoint? Are you looking for alternatives to Powerpoint , an app like Powerpoint? Some revolutions happen in an instant; others take their time. The PowerPoint revolution most definitely belongs to the latter.

Despite being the world’s most-used presentation software ( 89% of presenters still use it! ), the forum for dreary speeches, meetings, lessons and training seminars is dying a prolonged death.

In the modern day, its formula of one-way, static, inflexible and ultimately un-engaging presentations is overshadowed by an expanding wealth of alternatives to PowerPoint. Death by PowerPoint is becoming the death of PowerPoint; audiences won’t stand for it any longer.

Of course, there are presentation software other than PowerPoint. Here, we lay out 3 of the best alternatives to PowerPoint that money (and no money) can buy. These three are the best in 3 distinct fields of presentations : fun + interactive, visual + non-linear and simple + quick. So let’s check out the main PowerPoint side-by-side comparison as below!

Table of Contents

Engagement tips, why alternatives to powerpoint, our suggestions.

• Best Free Alternative to Slido
• How to make an interactive PowerPoint
• Free alternative to Mentimeter
• Free alternative to Kahoot
• Top Mentimeter Alternatives in 2024
• Best Alternatives to PowerPoint
• How to make an interactive powerpoint

Looking for a better engagement tool?

Say bye to boring PowerPoints - Hello, AhaSlides - the best free programs like PowerPoint!

1. AhaSlides

👊 Best for : Top PowerPoint alternatives – as the fun + interactive presentations

If you’ve ever had a presentation fall on deaf ears, you’ll know it’s a complete confidence destroyer. Seeing rows of people clearly more engaged with their phone than they are with your presentation is a horrible feeling.

Engaged audiences are audiences who have something to do , which is where AhaSlides comes in.

AhaSlides is an alternative to PowerPoint that allows users to create interactive, immersive interactive presentations . It encourages your audience to respond to questions, contribute ideas and play super fun quiz games using nothing but their phones.

Tips: Using Live Q&A helps to boost engagement in gatherings!

A PowerPoint presentation in a lesson, team meeting or training seminar might be met with a groan and visible distress on the younger faces, but an AhaSlides presentation is more like an event. Chuck a few polls, word clouds , scale ratings , brainstorm sessions , Q&As or quiz questions directly into your presentation and you’ll be amazed at how much of your audience is completely tuned in ..

Like most great alternatives to PowerPoint, AhaSlides works 100% offline, online or in a hybrid situation. Unlike most, however, AhaSlides has a super generous free plan and the market’s most affordable paid plans for audiences of more than 7!

Break the ice with:

• 21+ Icebreaker Games for Better Team Meeting Engagement | Updated in 2024
• 14+ Inspiring Games for Virtual Meetings | 2024 Updated

Best Feature – Best Alternatives to PowerPoint

AhaSlides’ top feature helps long-term PowerPoint users break ties with software like PowerPoint, in a seamless, harmless, “it’s not me, it’s definitely you” kind of way.

Users of AhaSlides, even on the free plan, can import their PowerPoint presentations directly . From here, they can trail some interactive slides throughout their presentation, so that when audiences stay engaged with the content by submitting responses to live polls , brainstorms, word clouds, full quiz games and beyond.

PowerPoint presentations of up to 100 slides can be imported for totally free, although honestly if you’re making presentations anywhere near 100 slides then you’re certainly in dire need of interactive presentation software.

Unlike other alternatives to PowerPoint, there’s no limit on the number of interactive slides you can integrate into your presentation. So, if you want 4 interactive slides to every 1 PowerPoint slide you make, no one’s going to stop you (not least your interaction-craving audience!)

Learn more: 40 Best Likert Scale Examples | Updated in 2024

💡 Want to make your PowerPoint interactive? Check out our guide on how to do that in under 5 minutes!

👊 Best for : Visual + non-linear presentations

Is Prezi better than Powerpoint? Yes, visually! Pretty much, Prezi like Powerpoint! If you’ve never used Prezi before, you might be confused as to why the picture above seems to be a mockup image of a disorganised room. Be assured this is a screenshot of a presentation.

Much has been written about Prezi when it comes to alternatives to PowerPoint. In fact, Prezi is one of the longest-running advocates of the new way of presenting, which focuses on clear, attractive visuals rather than a tedious torrent of text.

And it’s something that Prezi does very well. Prezi puts visuals at the very centre of its presentations and helps users shape their content around things that are nice to look at, which probably goes without saying, is a big step up from walls of words in 6-point font.

Prezi is an example of non-linear presenting , meaning that it does away with the traditional practice of moving from slide to slide in a predictable one-dimension fashion. Instead, it gives users a wide open canvas, helps them build topics and subtopics, then connects them so that every slide can be viewed by clicking from the central page:

In terms of visuals and navigation, you can already see why presentation software like Prezi is one of the top PowerPoint alternatives. The fact that it looks and feels practically nothing like PowerPoint is one of its greatest strengths, which reinforces the fact that PowerPoint looks and feels like PowerPoint is one of its most significant weaknesses.

For intermittent presenters who need a good alternative to PowerPoint for a few presentations, the 5 allowed on Prezi’s free plan is enough. However, those who are looking to engage audiences on the regular, with access to features like PowerPoint import, offline-friendly desktop app and privacy controls will have to shell out at least $14 per month ($3 per month for educators and students) – not a princely sum by any means, but higher than some other software similar to PowerPoint. Therefore, AhaSlides is the best free alternative to Prezi.

Best Feature

A big plus point for Prezi is that a subscription to its presentation services also gets you two more services – Prezi Video and Prezi Design. Both are good tools, but the star of the show is Prezi Video .

Prezi Video has a very keen eye on the future. Both virtual presentations and video media are on the rise, and Prezi Video matches both intents with a simple-to-use tool that helps you illustrate your spoken presentation with slick visual effects and images before you record it.

What it lacks is the ability to easily add graphs, infographics, or anything else that might help you visualise a point. Still, that particular slack is picked up by Prezi Design , which focuses on simple graphic design to create the kind of colourful data visualisation you might want to add to your presentation.

One con to all of this is that it’s easy to spend so much time flitting between the 3 bits of software that at the end of 5 hours, you might have only created one very visually indulgent slide. The learning curve is steep, but it’s fun if you’ve got time to invest.

3. Haiku Deck

👊 Best for : Simple + quick presentations, as it’s the free PowerPoint software!

Sometimes, you don’t need the Prezi-level complexity of 3 full suites to create one presentation. When you’ve got the confidence to present with your voice, all you need for support is a background and a bit of text.

That’s Haiku Deck . It’s a stripped-back alternative to PowerPoint that doesn’t overbear its users with features. It works on as simple a principle as picking an image, picking a font and combining both into a slide.

The vast majority of presenters simply don’t have time to spend creating a full deck of slides that look beautiful and transition more beautifully still. Haiku Deck fits the huge group of professionals who want nothing more than a library of templates, backgrounds and images, as well as the means to embed YouTube and audio clips and see analytics once a presentation is done.

For such no-frills software, you’d be forgiven for expecting a no-frills price tag. Well, Haiku Deck might cost you more than that – it’s a minimum of $9.99 a month. Not too bad in itself, but you’ll also be locked into an annual plan and can’t even register for the free trial without entering your card details.

Another downside to Haiku Deck is that you might also find the features to be as inflexible as the pricing structure. There’s not a lot of room for customisation, meaning that if you don’t like one element of a background (say, the shading or the opacity), you’ll have to ditch the whole thing and go with another background entirely.

A final gripe we have is that Haiku Deck seems really intent on making you sign up to a paid account. The option to sign up for free is buried right down in the depths of the pricing page, and the free plan is limited to just a single presentation.

Haiku Deck’s “best feature” is actually a combination of 2 features that make up one great idea: takeaway presentations .

As the presenter, you can first use the audio feature to either record your presentation or to upload a prior recording of it. You can attach these to each individual slide to make a fully narrated presentation without the need for you to present it live.

After you’ve recorded it all, you can use the save video feature to export your narrated presentation as a video.

This may seem quite a bit less engaging for an audience, but it’s highly convenient for simple webinars and explainer videos. The drawback is that this is only available on the pro account, which costs a minimum of $19.99 per month. For that money and the time you’ll spend earning it, you’re maybe better off using Prezi .

👊 Best for : Versatile, user-friendly, and visually appealing.

If you are looking for a treasure trove of diverse templates for your presentation or project, Canva is an epic pick. One of Canva’s key strengths lies in its accessibility and ease of use. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and pre-designed templates make it accessible to users of all skill levels, from beginners to experienced designers.

While PowerPoint may initially seem challenging, its complexity grants users extensive control over the design process. It seamlessly accommodates diverse and intricate presentation requirements with advanced features and customization options, especially in animations, transitions, and formatting.

Canva makes teamwork easy with its collaborative features, letting users work together in real-time from anywhere. PowerPoint also allows collaboration via its cloud service, but Canva stands out with its seamless integration with social media and cloud storage, making workflow smoother and more accessible.

Canva provides a free version with basic features and budget-friendly paid plans. (US$119.99/year for one person; US$300/ year total for the first 5 people). Even though Canva might cost a bit more than PowerPoint, it’s worth it for all the cool stuff you can do with it. 

Canva is like, super awesome for making cool designs and stuff. One of the best things about it is the pre-made templates. They have templates for everything, like Instagram posts, presentations, posters, and more. It’s so easy to use, even if you’re not, like, a pro at design.

You just drag and drop stuff onto your design, and boom, it looks amazing! There are so many things you can do to make your design unique, like changing colours, adding text, and even putting in cool animations. Plus, you can simultaneously work on projects with your friends, which is neat. Canva does all the hard work for you, so you can just focus on making your report look awesome.

5. Visme 

👊 Best for : Creating captivating visual content that effectively communicates ideas, data, and messages across various platforms and audiences.

Are you looking for a tool to spice up your visuals and make them more fun? Visme is just the thing you need!

Visme also has tons of templates and design options, just like Canva. But the cool thing is, they’re all made to be fun and interactive. So whether you’re working on a school project or a presentation for work, you can make it look awesome with Visme.

And if you’re working with friends, Visme makes collaboration become so easy. You can all work together on your project at the same time, and even give feedback to each other. It’s super easy and makes group projects way more fun!

Visme’s free version limits access to premium features, encouraging users to upgrade for full access to templates and advanced tools. However, paid plans, while offering valuable features, may be costlier than competitors, possibly straining budgets. Visme’s pricing starts at $12.25/month for Starter and $24.75/month for Plus, slightly more than PowerPoint.

What makes Visme shine is its knack for bringing your visuals to life. You can jazz up your pictures with all sorts of fun elements like animations and interactive charts. It’s a surefire way to make your projects pop and wow your friends and teachers! 

Unlike conventional static designs, Visme enables users to integrate animations, transitions, and interactive elements like clickable buttons and embedded multimedia. These features captivate audiences, enhancing engagement in presentations, infographics, reports, and various other forms of visual communication. By facilitating the creation of dynamic and immersive experiences, Visme stands out as a premier choice for individuals and businesses aiming to deliver impactful visual content.

Learn more: Use AhaSlides random team generator to divide teams for better brainstorming sessions!

6. Powtoon 

👊 Best for : Captivating, animated presentations and videos with visual flair.

Powtoon shines in creating dynamic animated presentations with its diverse range of animations, transitions, and interactive elements. This sets it apart from PowerPoint, which mainly focuses on static slides. Powtoon is ideal for presentations requiring high visual appeal and interactivity, such as sales pitches or educational content.

While PowerPoint may have a slight advantage in ease of use for users familiar with Microsoft Office, Powtoon offers a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop tools and ready-made templates, catering to beginners. Both Powtoon and PowerPoint offer cloud-based collaboration features, but Powtoon’s seamless integration with social media and cloud storage enhances workflow accessibility.

In terms of cost, Powtoon offers various pricing plans, including a free version, while PowerPoint usually requires a subscription or license purchase. $15/month for Lite version, $40/month for Professional and $70/month for Agency (special price in different periods) 

Overall, Powtoon is preferred for creating dynamic and engaging animated presentations, while PowerPoint remains a solid choice for users who prefer a familiar interface and extensive feature set, especially those already using Microsoft Office products.

With Powtoon, you can check out how well your presentations are doing with these awesome analytics and tracking tools. You can see stuff like how many people watched your presentation, how much they liked it, and if they clicked on anything. It’s like having your own personal detective to see what’s working and what’s not!

And that’s not all! You can also record your voice to go along with your presentation! This makes it way more exciting because you can explain things while people watch. It’s like being the narrator of your own movie! Voiceover recording lets you make your presentations super cool and engaging; everyone will talk about them afterwards!

7. SlideDog 

👊 Best for : Dynamic presentations with seamless integration of diverse media formats.

When comparing SlideDog to PowerPoint, SlideDog stands out as a versatile presentation tool that seamlessly integrates various media formats.

While PowerPoint focuses primarily on slides, SlideDog allows users to blend slides, PDFs, videos, web pages, and more into a single, cohesive presentation. This flexibility enables presenters to craft engaging and interactive presentations that transcend traditional slideshows.

A notable advantage of SlideDog lies in its user-friendly interface, making it accessible to users of all proficiency levels. In contrast to PowerPoint’s complexity, SlideDog simplifies the presentation creation process, empowering users to concentrate on content rather than technical complexities.

Regarding collaboration, both SlideDog and PowerPoint offer cloud-based collaboration features. Nevertheless, SlideDog’s emphasis on multimedia integration fosters creativity and teamwork, as users can seamlessly share and collaborate on presentations containing diverse media elements.

Moreover, SlideDog offers a cost-effective solution for users seeking to create multimedia-rich presentations. With flexible pricing options and a complimentary version available, SlideDog provides affordability without compromising on features or capabilities. Conversely, PowerPoint typically requires a subscription or license purchase as part of the Microsoft Office suite.

SlideDog is your ultimate sidekick when it comes to presentations. Imagine you’ve got all these different things you want to show – slides, videos, PDFs, and web pages. Usually, it’s a headache trying to switch between them without losing your audience’s attention.

But with SlideDog, it’s like having a superpower. You can throw all these elements together seamlessly, creating a presentation that’s not just informative but engaging too. It’s like having a magic wand that turns your boring slides into a dynamic show that keeps everyone on the edge of their seats. So, forget about boring presentations – with SlideDog, yours will be the one everyone remembers!

👊 Best for: Interactive and Collaborative Presentations

Pitch offers a range of interactive tools and features that elevate presentations beyond traditional slides. With Pitch, users can create dynamic presentations with embedded videos, interactive charts, and live polls, enhancing audience engagement and interaction. This sets Pitch apart from PowerPoint, which primarily focuses on static slides and may lack the same level of interactivity.

While PowerPoint boasts extensive features, Pitch offers competitive pricing, starting at $20 per month for the Pro tier and $80 per month for the Business tier. Despite being higher than some PowerPoint subscriptions, Pitch’s affordability, combined with its interactive and collaborative features, makes it an attractive option for budget-conscious users seeking impactful presentations.

Pitch is the ultimate tool for making presentations that pop! It’s perfect for when you need to show off your ideas in a way that’s super eye-catching and unforgettable. With Pitch, you can create slides that are as unique as you are, with cool designs and fun features that make your presentations stand out from the rest.

And the best part? Pitch excels in collaboration, allowing users to work together in real-time on presentations. Pitch’s collaborative features are designed to streamline teamwork and enhance productivity. Pitch’s seamless integration with cloud storage services and social media platforms further enhances collaboration, making it easier for teams to collaborate from anywhere.

👊 Best for : Visually stunning presentations with its modern templates and easy-to-use design tools.

While PowerPoint is a classic choice for presentations, Emaze stands out for its user-friendly interface and visually appealing templates. Emaze simplifies the design process with intuitive drag-and-drop tools and a wide selection of pre-designed templates, catering to users of all skill levels. In contrast, PowerPoint’s initial complexity may present a barrier for beginners, although it offers extensive control over design elements.

Emaze offers collaborative features similar to PowerPoint’s cloud service, but it distinguishes itself with seamless integration with social media platforms and cloud storage services, enhancing workflow efficiency and accessibility.

A standout feature of Emaze is its diverse array of templates and customization options. Users can effortlessly create captivating presentations with visually appealing designs, animations, and transitions.

Additionally, Emaze offers affordability, with a free version and budget-friendly paid plans with three pricing for different users: the Student plan at $5/user/month, the EDU PRO plan at $9/user/month for educational institutions, and the Pro Plan at $13/month for advanced features. These options ensure accessibility to Emaze’s innovative presentation tools for students and professionals alike.

Emaze’s templates offer an incredible range of options for your presentations. It’s like having access to a vast wardrobe full of different styles, from classic and refined to playful and bold. Whether you’re preparing for a formal business pitch or a creative project, there’s a template that perfectly complements your vision.

And the best part? They’re incredibly user-friendly – just select the template that resonates with you, add your content, and voila! You’re ready to impress your audience. It’s like having a personal stylist for your presentations, ensuring you always look polished and professional.

If you’re here of your own accord, you’re probably well-versed in the problems of PowerPoint.

Well, you’re not alone. Actual researchers and academics have been working for years to prove that PowerPoint. We’re not sure whether that’s just because they’re sick of sitting through 50 PowerPoints in every 3-day conference they attend.

• According to a survey by Desktopus , one of the top 3 expectations from an audience in a presentation is for interaction . A well-meaning ‘how are you guys doing?’ at the start probably won’t cut the mustard; it’s best to have a regular stream of interactive slides embedded directly into your presentation, related directly to the content, so that audiences can feel more connected and more engaged. This is something that PowerPoint doesn’t allow but something that AhaSlides does immensely well.
• According to the University of Washington , after 10 minutes, an audience’s attention to a PowerPoint presentation will ‘plummet to near zero’. And those studies weren’t conducted exclusively with presentations on unit-linked insurance planning; these were, as described by professor John Medina, ‘moderately interesting’ subject matter. This proves that attention spans are becoming ever-shorter, which demonstrates that PowerPoint users need a fresh approach and also that Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule might require an update.

Like we said at the start, the PowerPoint revolution will take a few years.

Amongst increasingly impressive alternatives to PowerPoint like AhaSlides, Prezi and Haiku Deck, each offers its own unique take on the ultimate presentation software. They each see the chink in the armour of PowerPoint and offer their users a simple, affordable way out.

So, let’s check out few presentation alternatives, replacement to Powerpoint as below!

Top Fun Presentation Alternatives to PowerPoint?

Top visual presentation alternatives to powerpoint.

Top Best General Platform – Rather Than Powerpoint?

More from AhaSlides

10 Best Presentation Software Alternatives To PowerPoint

Launching into the world of presentations, startups and professionals alike are looking for tools that can set them apart from the mundane. After in-depth analysis, we’ve unearthed 2023’s top 10 presentation apps and software alternatives to PowerPoint. Here’s our handpicked list to elevate your content and captivate your audience. Let these innovative platforms transform your ideas into compelling visual stories.

What Exactly is Presentation Software?

Presentation software is a digital tool designed to showcase information and ideas visually, turning complex data and concepts into easily digestible slides and graphics. It’s about conveying messages effectively, engaging audiences, and transforming ordinary meetings into compelling storytelling sessions.

These programs typically offer features such as slide templates, animated transitions, interactive elements, multimedia embedding, and design customization. This ensures every presentation not only captivates the audience but is also tailored to the presenter’s unique presentation style and objectives. They provide an essential platform for educators, businesses, and professionals to communicate complex ideas, share insights, and collaborate on projects, all while making the experience dynamic and memorable.

10 Premier Presentation Tools Dominating 2023: Beyond PowerPoint

Google slides.

Google Slides is a dynamic presentation tool that’s part of the Google Workspace suite. It offers users the ability to create, edit, and collaborate on presentations directly in their web browsers, eliminating the need for specialized software. With its user-friendly interface, real-time collaborative features, and a variety of customizable templates, it has become a favorite for individuals and teams aiming for seamless, cloud-based presentations.

Moreover, Google Slides is not just restricted to creating slide decks. Its integration with other Google services like Google Drive, Google Photos, and Google Drawings ensures that users have a holistic experience. Whether you’re crafting a presentation for work, school, or personal projects, Google Slides offers the flexibility and tools to bring your ideas to life.

Key Features:

• Real-time Collaborative Editing
• Cloud-based Presentation Storage
• Customizable Slide Templates
• Integrated with Google Workspace
• Interactive Slide Transitions/Effects

Prezi is revolutionizing the art of presentation. Forget the static slides; Prezi’s open canvas allows users to organize, visualize, and move seamlessly through their content, creating an engaging, dynamic experience for audiences. With Prezi, you can collaborate with other users in real-time, no matter where they are located.

Whether in business or education, Prezi is trusted globally. Known for turning any presentation into an unforgettable storytelling experience, it’s been the go-to tool for over 15 years. From classrooms to TED talks, creators in over 180 countries rely on Prezi to craft presentations that are 25% more effective and 40% more memorable than traditional slides.

• Dynamic Open Canvas Design
• Collaboration Features
• Extensive Template & Asset Libraries
• Engaging Video Conference Integration
• Personalized Presenter Notes & Downloadables

Venngage stands out as an intuitive platform tailored for individuals without a design background, enabling them to craft professional and visually appealing infographics. Users are provided with an expansive library of customizable templates, designed to effortlessly transform mundane data and documents into engaging visuals. The platform’s capabilities extend beyond just infographics; it offers robust tools for creating reports, presentations, diagrams, and charts.

Promoting collaboration is at the heart of Venngage. The platform facilitates team synergy, allowing multiple users to contribute and refine projects seamlessly. Furthermore, to make the sharing and distribution process straightforward, Venngage offers a plethora of export options. Whether you’re aiming to keep your audience engaged, present data in a memorable way, or enhance team collaboration, Venngage proves to be an indispensable tool.

• Intuitive Infographic Creation Tools
• Expansive Customizable Template Library
• Collaborative Design and Editing
• Multiple Export Options
• Diverse Report and Chart Capabilities

Powtoon is the ultimate platform for crafting dynamic and engaging videos and presentations that truly captivate your audience. Whether you’re in HR looking to recruit top talent, a marketer aiming for lead generation, or an educator wanting to inspire creativity, Powtoon provides the tools to convey your message with a powerful visual punch. Trusted by 96% of Fortune 500 companies, it ensures your content resonates effectively with your audience.

Dive into a world of animated characters, vast templates, mesmerizing video backgrounds, and evocative soundtracks with Powtoon’s intuitive interface that requires no design or technical expertise. With over 40 million satisfied customers, step up your presentation game and make sure your content stands out in the crowd.

• Dynamic Video and Presentation Maker
• Intuitive No-Skill-Required Interface
• Extensive Library of Animated Characters
• Customizable Templates and Backgrounds
• Trusted by 96% of Fortune 500

Renderforest

Renderforest is a comprehensive design platform that centralizes a multitude of creative tools to cater to your business’s marketing and branding needs. Whether you’re seeking to produce captivating videos, animations, and graphics, or you want to design standout logos, mockups, and professional websites, Renderforest is equipped to bring your visions to life. Trusted by over 20 million users and 100,000 high-end companies, this platform empowers both novices and professionals to craft visually compelling content with ease, ensuring your brand resonates with your target audience.

From crafting powerful explainer videos, creating elegant logo templates, to designing high-end presentations, every tool within Renderforest is designed to elevate your brand’s presence in the market. The platform replaces traditional video creation tools, website subscriptions, and design software, streamlining your creative process under one roof. Feedback from CEOs to freelancers highlights Renderforest’s impact in the field, praising its efficiency, professional results, and ease of use. Dive into Renderforest today and redefine how you communicate your brand’s story.

• Comprehensive Video and Animation Toolkit
• High-End Logo and Branding Designs
• Professional Website Creation and Hosting
• Advanced Presentation and Mockup Tools
• Streamlined Design and Marketing Integration

Pitch is transforming the realm of presentations, merging swift functionality with impeccable aesthetics. Tailored for the modern professional, this platform streamlines the process of crafting compelling slides, without compromising on design or detail. What’s notable is its collaborative feature — allowing teams to work in tandem, thus ensuring each deck embodies a collective vision. Renowned brands such as Grammarly, Notion, and Unsplash stand testament to its capabilities, having integrated Pitch into their workflow.

But Pitch isn’t just about creating; it’s about understanding your audience. The platform offers a suite of analytics tools that shed light on viewer interaction and engagement, ensuring creators can fine-tune their content for maximum impact. With the ability to share, edit, and embed presentations seamlessly, coupled with real-time insights, Pitch is not just a tool, but a comprehensive solution for anyone aiming to elevate their presentation game.

• Swift Collaborative Slide Creation
• Real-time Audience Engagement Analytics
• Seamless Team Collaboration Tools
• Dynamic Template & Brand Integration
• Embed Anywhere Web Presentations

Visme is a dynamic all-in-one platform designed for creating a broad range of visual content, from presentations and documents to data visualizations, videos, and more. Emphasizing interactivity and rich design capabilities, this platform is not just about creating visuals but transforming statistics and figures into compelling, impactful stories.

With its effortless ease-of-use, users can choose from thousands of customizable templates, integrate millions of unique photos and icons, and even bring their content to life with engaging animations. Serving over 23 million users from 133 countries, Visme goes beyond mere design; it’s about creating, scheduling, and publishing all from one place while ensuring brand consistency across teams.

• Interactive Content Creation
• Data-Driven Visualizations
• Thousands of Customizable Templates
• Collaborative Team Features
• Comprehensive Brand Consistency Tools

Slidebean is the ultimate tool for founders looking to elevate their business presentations. Designed with the modern entrepreneur in mind, this platform simplifies the process of creating captivating pitch decks. With its intuitive presentation software, users can swiftly construct impactful decks, while those looking for a more tailored approach can leverage Slidebean’s specialized Pitch Deck Services.

Here, founders are assisted by a team of seasoned analysts, storytellers, and designers to craft the perfect narrative for their startups. This proven formula has led to over $300M in funds raised in just 18 months. Whether you’re an emerging startup or an established business, Slidebean’s robust features, from automated design to slide analytics, are geared to set you on a trajectory of success.

• Intuitive Pitch Deck Creation
• Collaborative Teamwork Features
• Automated Design Assistance
• In-depth Slide Analytics
• Expert Business Analysis Support

HeyGen revolutionizes the video production game, allowing you to craft engaging videos in mere minutes without the hassle of cameras, actors, or complex editing processes. By leveraging AI-generated avatars and voices, users can efficiently produce high-quality content tailored to their needs.

From startups to established enterprises, teams globally are ditching traditional video production constraints and embracing HeyGen’s intuitive system. Whether it’s for product marketing, sales outreach, or learning development, HeyGen’s extensive avatar options and multilingual voices ensure your content resonates with your target audience, all at a fraction of the traditional cost and time.

• AI-generated Avatars and Voices
• Instant Video Production in Minutes
• Comprehensive Avatar Customization Options
• High-quality Voices in 40+ Languages
• Seamless Platform Integrations

Relayto is revolutionizing digital content creation by empowering businesses to transform PDFs and presentations into captivating content hubs. From auto-animations to no-code rich media embeds, Relayto ensures every content piece stands out. Personalized multimedia journeys and robust distribution options make it a top choice for content marketers, sales teams, and other professionals.

Beyond creation, Relayto offers AI-powered tools to turn files into animated digital microsites. It doesn’t stop at content sharing; the platform provides flexible sharing options, be it public, gated, or private. Combined with in-depth document analytics, Relayto ensures businesses not only distribute content but also gain actionable insights from audience engagement.

• Convert PDFs to Digital Hubs
• AI-Powered Content Transformation
• Personalized Multimedia Journeys
• Smart Content Sharing Options
• Deep Document Analytics

How did we pick the top presentation software alternatives to PowerPoint?

Diverse feature set:.

The presentation landscape has diversified, with tools now offering a variety of features, from animation to interactivity. We prioritized software that presented a comprehensive suite of innovative features, allowing users to craft presentations that stand out.

User-Friendly Interface:

The best tools should enhance creativity, not hinder it. We evaluated software based on user-friendliness, ensuring that even those new to presentation design could easily navigate and utilize its features.

Client Showcase:

A software’s reputation often lies in its users’ creations. We critically examined user showcases, searching for software that enabled users to produce exceptional, engaging presentations beyond the standard slide format.

Cost-Effectiveness:

While many professionals and startups seek high-quality tools, budget constraints are real. We ensure our selections offer value for money, delivering outstanding functionality at prices that cater to a range of budgets.

How to choose the right presentation software alternative to PowerPoint for you?

Clarify your needs:.

Understand the nature of your presentations. Are they for educational purposes, corporate pitches social media presentations, or interactive webinars? Recognizing your specific needs will help you select software with features tailored to your requirements.

Identify Your Audience:

The demographics and preferences of your audience can greatly influence your software choice. Tools that engage millennials might differ from those that resonate with a more mature audience. Understanding your audience ensures you can create presentations that are both relevant and engaging.

Seek Recommendations:

Leverage your network. Ask colleagues, peers, or industry connections about the software they use and why. Personal recommendations can provide insights into ease of use, effectiveness, and any potential challenges they’ve encountered.

Take Advantage of Trials:

Most software providers offer free trials or limited versions. Before committing, try out a free version of a few options to get a feel for their interfaces, features, and any limitations they might have.

Check Compatibility:

Consider where and how your presentation will be viewed. Ensure your chosen software is compatible with various devices and operating systems, especially if presenting to a remote or diverse audience.

Understand Pricing Structures:

While some tools offer one-time purchase options, others may have monthly or yearly subscriptions. Additionally, consider any add-ons or premium features you might need. It’s essential to find a tool that offers the features you need within your budget while also providing good value for the cost.

How much does it cost to invest in top presentation software alternatives to PowerPoint?

Venturing into the world of presentations, startups, and professionals often grapple with budget considerations. Leading presentation software alternatives in the US or EU can range between $10 to $50 per month for individual licenses, reflecting their advanced features and dynamic designs. However, more cost-effective alternatives are available from various global sources, although these might occasionally compromise on certain advanced functionalities. Users must balance their financial capacities with desired features when choosing a presentation program.

When is the right time to transition to a new presentation software?

For companies, startups, and professionals alike, discerning the right moment to switch or adopt a new presentation platform is paramount. The ideal time often arises when the presenter feels limited by their current tool, needing more advanced features or a fresher design palette. However, just feeling the need isn’t sufficient; it’s also essential to ensure that transitioning won’t disrupt ongoing projects or presentations. Most professionals consider making a shift during a lull in their presentation schedule or when starting a fresh project. Such periods allow them ample time to acquaint themselves with new features and design nuances. Once a presenter recognizes the need for elevated aesthetics and functionality and has the time to adapt, transitioning to one of the best presentation software alternatives can significantly enhance their storytelling prowess.

Interactive presentation tools vs. in-house development

Every forward-thinking company or individual presenter grapples with the choice: invest in the best presentation software or build an in-house presentation app. On the surface, a monthly subscription of $10 to $50 for a leading presentation software might appear more than reasonable. Yet, this fee unlocks a world of features, from seamless animations to intuitive design interfaces, crafted by experts with years dedicated to perfecting the user experience. Conversely, if you were to develop a proprietary in-house presentation app, the costs of hiring experienced developers, designers, and testers would likely far exceed those monthly fees, without the guarantee of achieving similar sophisticated features or reliability.

Furthermore, established interactive presentation tools benefit from continuous feedback from a vast user base. This means their features and functionalities are regularly updated and refined, ensuring you’re always working with cutting-edge tools. An in-house team might not have this breadth of exposure, potentially leading to a more narrow toolset.

Most common presentation tools

• PowerPoint Presentations: A staple in the presentation arena, PowerPoint offers a comprehensive suite of slide design and animation tools. Companies often turn to this Microsoft product for its familiarity and robust features, ensuring their ideas are conveyed clearly and effectively.
• Interactive Presentations: With the evolving need for dynamic and engaging content, interactive presentations have surged in popularity. Tools that offer features like clickable elements, embedded videos, and real-time audience polls can significantly enhance audience engagement and retention.
• Slide Design Templates: Companies looking for consistency and brand alignment often invest in slide design templates. These pre-designed layouts ensure every presentation adheres to the branding, enhancing recognition and professionalism.
• Webinar Platforms: As remote collaboration becomes more prevalent, companies are leveraging webinar platforms. These tools allow for live PowerPoint presentations, interactive Q&A sessions, and real-time audience engagement, ensuring a more immersive presentation experience.

How do you select the best presentation software alternative to PowerPoint?

• Competitor Usage: Explore the presentation tools your competitors prefer. Understand their choices to gauge which platforms might give you a competitive edge.
• Industry Trends: Survey the broader presentation landscape, pinpointing emerging trends and software functionalities that resonate with contemporary audiences.
• Integration Capabilities: Determine which software integrates seamlessly with other tools you use, ensuring a streamlined workflow and enhancing efficiency.
• Audience Engagement Features: Assess how different software options facilitate audience interaction. Consider features like real-time polling, Q&A modules, and interactive animations to ensure your presentations captivate and engage.

6 things to discuss with a presentation software provider before making the switch

1. preferred communication channels:.

In our connected era, there’s a plethora of ways to stay in touch, ranging from traditional emails to more advanced collaborative platforms. Before committing to a presentation app, ascertain the primary mode of communication for support or queries. Is it through direct emails, platforms like Discord, or a ticketing system within the software itself? A consistent mode of interaction ensures prompt support, clarity, and efficient problem resolution. Moreover, have contingencies in place for pressing issues or if there are any technological disruptions.

2. Primary Point of Contact:

It’s vital to know who you’ll be communicating with when you have queries or need assistance. Will it be a dedicated customer success manager, a support team, or a community forum? Identifying the primary source of help ensures swift solutions and a deeper understanding of how to harness the best presentation software’s full potential. Your point of contact should be knowledgeable, reachable, and have an in-depth comprehension of the software’s functionalities.

3. Frequency of Software Updates:

Regular updates are crucial for software applications to stay relevant and bug-free. Clarify how often the software receives updates—are they monthly, quarterly, or based on user feedback? Frequent updates reflect the provider’s commitment to offering the latest presentation templates, tools, and features. It’s also a chance to discuss the inclusion of new features or any bugs that might affect your future presentations.

4. Transparency in Pricing Structure:

While you may have a grasp of the basic costs, probe deeper into any additional or hidden fees. Are there extra charges for premium presentation templates, additional user licenses, or specific integrations? Being fully aware of the cost structure ensures there are no unwelcome financial surprises later on. A transparent financial discussion fosters trust and sets the stage for a seamless partnership.

5. Metrics for Presentation Success:

It’s essential to understand the metrics the software provides to gauge the effectiveness of your presentations. Discuss available analytics: does the software offer insights into slide engagement, viewer retention, or interactive element usage? Having a shared perspective on what metrics are essential ensures your presentations can be optimized for maximum impact.

6. Software’s Scalability and Adaptability:

As your presentation needs evolve, the software should be able to keep pace. Address how the software adapts to changing trends in the presentation world. Can it handle more extensive audiences, integrate with newer platforms, or offer advanced interactive features down the line? Ensuring the software is future-proof and can scale with your requirements guarantees a lasting and fruitful relationship.

Digital tools that presentation creators use

Slidebean & Visme: These are foundational tools that offer templates video presentations and designs optimized for impactful presentations.

Prezi & Keynote: These platforms stand out for their dynamic and animated presentation capabilities, offering a fresh twist on traditional slide formats.

Canva & Crello: Offer invaluable design templates and elements to refine presentation aesthetics.

Grammarly & Hemingway Editor: Essential tools to ensure content clarity and grammar accuracy, they scan the text to enhance readability and coherence.

Sketch & Illustrator: Design-centric tools pivotal for crafting bespoke illustrations and graphics tailored for slide decks.

Filmora & iMovie: Robust video editing software that enables creators to incorporate compelling video segments within presentations.

Pexels & Unsplash: Both platforms provide a vast collection of high-quality, royalty-free images, enhancing the visual appeal of slides.

Icons8 & Noun Project: Repositories of varied icons, assist presenters in adding concise visual representations to their content.

The Role of Presentation Software in Driving Growth

Presentation software plays a crucial role in propelling businesses forward, acting as an essential tool for effective communication. By utilizing their advanced features and design capabilities, businesses can craft compelling narratives that align with their unique goals. With a dynamic and interactive platform, presentation software can highlight data and insights in ways that captivate audiences. Their adaptability across diverse scenarios ensures that presentations remain engaging and impactful. In tandem with a company’s vision, the best presentation software works diligently to enhance storytelling, driving meaningful engagement and bolstering business growth.

Final Thoughts on Presentation Software.

Think of presentation software as the visual storyteller of today’s digital age. It’s the nexus between the traditional lecture methods of yesteryear and the interactive engagement of modern times.

A presentation tool serves as a digital canvas, allowing ideas and information to come alive in a visually captivating manner. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a multinational enterprise, this software empowers your audience members and narratives with clarity and dynamism. Just as a canvas transforms mere colors into art, presentation software elevates simple data into compelling visuals and stories. In a world dominated by screens and short attention spans, the significance of a versatile, intuitive, and captivating presentation platform is paramount.

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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 .

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. 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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PowerPoint vs. Other Presentation Software: Which Is Better for Creating, Presenting, and Sending Sales Pitches?

Gunjan Gupta

Time sure flies in a blink of an eye. It's been 32 years since PowerPoint came into existence after being acquired by Microsoft, and since then, it is known as the ultimate transformation tool. Before the original and the most loved Microsoft Office suite introduced this magnificent presentation tool to what is now the ‘de facto’ of the billions of presenters, curating presentations was expensive and hands down the most tedious task one can get himself into. 

In the late ’80s, PowerPoint remodeled itself. For the first time, anyone having a personal computer could get a hold of this software: crafting and curating everything under the sun! Since then, its ability to bring in captivating presentations is a life-altering skill possessed by 70% and probably more American employees. 

By the time 2000s rolled around- a promising era had begun with new kids on the presentation block, ready to dethrone the ye olde campion; PowerPoint. In response to immense opportunity and exploding market demand, Apple’s Keynote (2003) and Google Slides (2007) entered the online realm, proving themselves to be true competitors. 

Despite the new kids trying to catch on, the number of loyal customers of PowerPoint has been impressive since time immemorial. Even after thirty years of its launch, PowerPoint is still embraced and cherished, designing as many as 30 million presentations per day.

So, which one to go for? Which one to choose: old or new for creating, presenting, and sharing the best sales pitches? This is an age-old decision that every presenter, no matter his skill level, should make. To assess, let us dismantle and study each industry leader: PowerPoint vs. Google Slides vs. Keynote , piece by piece, brick by brick.

A quick overview: PowerPoint 

PowerPoint is such a ubiquitous tool that almost everybody has heard of it. From business to academics to the corporate world, it has conquered every arena, becoming the de facto leader of presentation software for decades. In fact, for many people, PowerPoint and word presentations are synonymous with each other. Its interface is so familiar that it remains a cult favorite to date. 

Additionally, PowerPoint is a part of every office product available on both IOS and Android, making it even harder to avoid it. It can be included in every other office pursuit and does everything that you would expect a presentation software to do; add text, media, add any number of slides to accompany a talk or other presentations. You name it, and PowerPoint has it! Even a novice can work with PowerPoint without any essential training as it is easy to work with. 

Overall it is hard to go wrong with and not become a firm member of the ever so popular PowerPoint clan!

A quick overview: Keynote 

Keynote is essentially the Apple version of PowerPoint, native to Apple products and users only. It is part of the iWord productivity suite enabling you to design sleek and streamlined presentations. 

Jam-packed with powerful features- such as creating top-notch charts, reflections, and picture frames-  Keynote makes it to the most amazing software to add cinematic-like transitions to your presentations. 

A quick overview: Google Slides  

Google surely has an impeccable fan following owing to the fact that a majority of its efforts are directed towards the well-being of its users. From its powerful algorithms that can search anything under the sun to competitive office products built with cloud-based productivity at fore, it surely is the most responsive and intuitive suite. 

Google Slides is an essential part of Google’s software office suite. It is a free tool that can be used by any Google Drive user for both personal and professional needs. Though it is a fairly new software, it delivers awe-inspiring presentation features to its users. 

Now that the three presentation software have been demystified, let us explore a few parameters to help you decide which software should you choose:

1. OFFLINE & ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY

This is a tricky parameter to base one’s judgment. When it comes to online and offline accessibility, every software has its perks. There are so many ways to access all these software, making it confusing for the average user. 

Online Access- Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Keynotes all the software perform well on various online platforms. Having said that, they have their own integration services to carry on the process.

Offline Access- There is no denying the fact that PowerPoint with its robust offline apps is the best software out there. Its UI is specially prepared to meet the offline requirements of the user, hence it is a go-to tool when it comes to preparing an offline presentation. While Google Slides and Keynotes are trying to catch up with this offline beast, it is very safe to say that none of them have succeeded as of now. 

Verdict- It is hard to imagine any other presentation app that is far more equipped than PowerPoint. While it may not necessarily be mobile-friendly, there is no denying that it provides a seamless experience to its users online and offline. As for the Google Slides and Keynotes, they are still grooming themselves and have a lot of catching up to do. Google Slides still lags behind in providing a reliable desktop app without getting too jittery. 

2. SPECIAL EFFECTS 

Google Slides offer pretty basic and beginner-friendly animation options which are quite less when compared to its rival PowerPoint with its cutting edge features. If creativity is what you preach then nothing can be more enchanting than the PowerPoint interface. With hundreds of options to choose from an advanced software like PowerPoint will certainly never prove to be a disappointment. Although its graphic creation is nothing in comparison to Photoshop, PowerPoint can handle basic graphic creation with aplomb. 

Additionally, one can use PowerPoint to remove the background image, crop, and reshape and even create great social media graphic content that is loved by many. 

Verdict-  PowerPoint is essentially the jack of all trades in the presentation block. It can perform some impossible actions which might seem somewhat extra, but according to us, they are liable in making your presentation noteworthy. 

3. CROSS-PLATFORM COMPATIBILITY

Compatibility is one of the major reasons why a lot of software don’t make it to the final cut. Prime examples of these are Prezi and as far as Keynote goes, it should not be even considered as Apple seems to be obsessed with the bliss of its one hardware and OS. Let see who wins this one! 

PowerPoint has apps on Windows, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and many online accessibility options via the standard Browser. Google Slides essentially relies on internet browsers, with its handy plugins. While Google Slides have a lot of apps to offer, it is still lacking when it comes to providing cross-platform accessibility. 

Verdict- Yet again PowerPoint beats every other kid in the market, despite of its half-baked mobile apps. But, I am sure Microsoft will find a solution to that too. 

4. PRICE & AFFORDABILITY

I know it is not a very intelligent point to include here, but let us admit that we all are concerned about how much or how little we have to spend in order to gain access to these three presentation industry pioneers. 

PowerPoint arguably has the worst reputation when it comes to pricing whereas Keynote and Google Slides are absolutely free of cost, making the verdict pretty straightforward. 

Final Closure- Without dwelling into the convoluted Office pricing mechanism we declare Google Slides and Keynote as winners here. However, when we look at the extensive professional gallery PowerPoint has to offer, who cares about shelling a few extra from one’s pocket right? If you disagree with us then Google Slides and Keynote are present to help you out in this journey! 

And the Winner is…...

So which presentation software makes it to your list of favorites; PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides? Which one should you go for creating, presenting, and delivering sales pitches? Obviously, all three of them have their own share of pros and cons, but PowerPoint definitely outshines every other software in the list, owing to its easy adaptability and resourcefulness. Therefore against all the odds, in order to become a seasoned presentation designer, PowerPoint is hands down the best and most professional option to go for! 

That being said, if you are not yet a firm believer in PowerPoint clan and are looking for some additional validation, here are a few sales pitch examples that prove that the reign of this powerful tool will continue for ages long. Also, no matter how many attempts are made to dethrone this champion, it will hold its position of being the ultimate resort, the de facto, and the master of presentation design software with its era never coming to an end! 

A few Sales Pitch Templates to help you make the right choice 

Deliver effortless sales pitches with these stunning pre-designed templates designed using the PowerPoint software. Upload logos, brand quotes, and more to present one-of-a-kind sales presentations with real-time collaboration and PDF export qualities features. 

Template 1 

Writing a persuading sales pitch is at the top of the sales managers’ priority list as it is the ultimate resort to close a deal. Our meticulously crafted sales pitch proposal template design follows some of the industry’s best practices, thus helping you deliver great pitches. This template can be implemented to showcase the sales process. Also, it is a proven way to stand out from the competitors due to its insightful content and awe-inspiring design. Therefore, download it now to establish great relations with your clients and subordinates. 

Download Sale Offer Pitch Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Convince your prospects to purchase your products and services with this astounding sales pitch design. Convince investors, partners, or any other individual to opt for your product rather than your competitors by using this template design. Experts design such a template hence it initiates an immediate call to action to make a purchase decision by the prospects. This template is fully customizable, so feel free to portray any insightful details using it. The elements like color, design, shapes, etc. everything can be altered.   

Download Sales Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Nail your next sales presentation by using this pre-designed proposal template design, which is equipped with valuable content and high-quality images. This template is ideal for any sales rep looking to meet his targets and outperform every other team member. It is also a great design to create ever-lasting relationships between you and your prospects. Since, this is a professionally designed template, depicting valuable insights is what this design promises and stands by. Therefore, do give it a try to empower your clients and their actions. 

Download Product Sale Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Boost your sales ratio with this ready-to-use template design. Target new prospects, and impress all your views with this visually attractive layout that can be adapted to your needs and requirements. Valuable information regarding the value proposition, product traction, key offerings, action plan, and several others can be presented here to convince and persuade. Thus, helping you close more deals and increase the selling point of your company. 

Download Sales Strategy Secrets And Tips PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Acquaint your customers with the best possible sales pitch by making use of this template. Present this layout in front of senior management to portray valuable information regarding the facets of the major sale like business overview, highlights, quarter track record sales performance, etc. Showcase the records to products sold and highlight your organization’s sales volume by adapting this template to your business needs and requirements. 

Download Sales Reports PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Still not convinced? Our advice; try your hands on all three, and decide for yourself who the clear winner is! (wink) PowerPoint it is………………...

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