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.

A person doing a presentation on a whiteboard.

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 Apps

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

The best free presentation software of 2024 in full:

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Prezi website screenshot

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 .

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Canva website screenshot

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 .

LibreOffice website screenshot

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 .

Google Slides website screenshot

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 .

WPS Office Free website screenshot

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

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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top open source presentation software

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27 Open Source Slideshow Presentation Editors and PowerPoint Alternatives

Hazem Abbas

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27 Open Source Slideshow Presentation Editors and PowerPoint Alternatives

Presentations and slideshows are essential tools for marketeers, strategists, teachers, and ofcourse students.

Basically, a slideshow is a presentation of series of still images on a projection screen or a projector (displaying device).

Microsoft powerpoint carries the same technique with more of magic transition effects, ability to add interactive diagrams, videos, and videos.

PowerPoint Open Source Alternative

Many think that there is a lack of alternatives for Powerpoint especially for Linux, but that is far from the truth as we are about to offer you many, so stay tuned.

Prezi, a new generation presentation

However, before we start we have to differentate between the old classicial slideshow presentation as MS PowerPoint, and the new fancy presentation by Prezi.com.

While PowerPoint and its open source counterpart in office suites keep the old approach, Prezi.com offered a large canvas presentation with stunning catching effect, that proven to be reliable for many enterprise users.

Presentation extensions and compatability

There are many presentation extensions that is supported by the popular office suites. Many of these extensions are supported in the open source apps as LibreOffice, Calligra suites. Also, in the free WPS Office suite.

On the otherhand, Prezi or canvas style presentation, has their own extension which is not compatable with the office suites.

Another note worth mentioning here is, Markdown and Terminal based presentation app, are often use Text-based Markdown files to build the presentation, which can be edited by any text editor, yet not compatable with any office suite presentation apps.

PowerPoint, and PDF Style Presentation Apps

1- libreoffice impress.

top open source presentation software

LibreOffice is an open source office suite and the ideal alternative for the commercial enterprise released office suites as MS Office. It includes a text processor, presentation manager, spreadsheet program and other apps.

The LibreOffice Impress has similar features as PowerPoint, It enables you to create a rich slideshow and presentation with dozens of customizable options. It contains a rich set of page transition animation, text styles, and dozens of shapes, diagrams, with a rich built-in 2D/ 3D library set.

LibreOffice works on Linux, Windows, macOS.

2- Calligra Stage

top open source presentation software

Calligra Stage is a presentation software and a part of Calligra office suite. It uses the OpenDocument file format standard which is compatible with other office suites.

With Stage, you can design your slides, control added shapes, charts, diagrams, and style your text. You can also add notes, change your page layout, and enjoy a long list of page transition and included animations.

Calligra Suite is an open source office and graphic suite by KDE; the popular Linux desktop environment. It also includes a text document editor (Words), a vector editor (Karbon), Spreadsheet editor (Sheet), Visual Database creator (KEXI), and an amazing project management application (Plan).

3- Impressive

top open source presentation software

Unlike the previous apps, Impressive is a standalone open source free presentation and slideshow generator that uses PDF to render your slides.

It contains many page translations, enable you to view your slides in an overview screen, highlight text boxes, and add spotlight effects.

The app is completely free, and open source for Linux systems.

4- Spice-up

top open source presentation software

Spice-up is a lightweight free presentation manager for Linux systems. It features a simple user-friendly interface, and allows you to create quick presentations without a fuzz.

Spice-up enables you to export your presentations directly to PDF.

5- Imagination

Imagination is a minimal yet feature-rich presentation software for Linux. Originally built by an open source enthusiast and Linux user who noticed a lack of presentation software for Linux systems.

It includes about 70-page transition effects, and enables you to export your presentation to video formats as OGV Theora/Vorbis, widescreen FLV video, 3GP for mobile phones, H264 and H265 for HD slideshows.

6- WPS Office (Free)

top open source presentation software

WPS Office is a free professional enterprise-grade office suite for people who look for a Microsoft Office replacement.

WPS Office enables you to edit and manage Writer, Presentation, Spreadsheet, and PDF with others at the same time. It is fully compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS and supports 47 file formats and 46 languages.

Prezi.com style presentation

Prezi.com is a commercial web-based presentation service, that allows you to create beautiful unique presentation as it treats the whole canvas as one slide, where you move, pane, or zoom to your next area of interest.

top open source presentation software

Unlike the classical slideshow presentation, Sozi is an amazing presentation program that allows you to create a catchy zoomable presentation. It is based on open standard and released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

Sozi can be installed on Linux, Windows, and macOS. It can also be installed using Docker for macOS and Linux.

top open source presentation software

With Sozi, you can add URLs, embed videos, and audios, and convert your presentation to PDF or videos.

2- DeckDeckGo

top open source presentation software

DeckDeckGo is a self-hosted collaborative web-based presentation manager, that also can be used directly from CDN or integrate with other frameworks such as React, Vue, Angular and Ember.

Although, the official commercial service is deprecated, the source code is available and supported by a good community of user and developers.

3- RevealJs

top open source presentation software

RevealJS is a popular JavaScript presentation and slideshow library that developers can install, integrate and use in their projects. It plays well with other JavaScript framework as React, Vue, and Angular.

RevealJS presentations are responsive and works smoothly with mobile browsers.

4- Impress.js

top open source presentation software

Impress.js is a presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind Prezi.com.

Impress.js demo is pretty cool as it offers an interactive canvas that zoom into the point of interest and focus area in steps.

It also comes with amazing 3D transitions that you can customize.

The primary downside of this stunning framework is that it requires coding skills to make it work. However, this can be resolved by using some Impress.js based apps which you will find in this post.

5- Hovercraft

Hovercraft is a stunning presentation software that allows you to create Prezi grade presentation using Impress.js, without having to worry about any code.

Hovercraft feature highlights

  • Write your presentations in a text markup language. No slow, limiting GUI, no annoying HTML!
  • Pan, rotate and zoom in 3D, with automatic repositioning of slides!
  • A presenter console with notes and slide previews!
  • Support for showing mathematical formulas.
  • Styling is easy with CSS.
  • The slide show generated is in HTML, so you only need a web browser to show it.
  • Easy sharing, as it can be put up on a website for anyone to see!

top open source presentation software

Strut - An Impress.js and Bespoke.js Presentation Editor that is based on Impress.js. The project now is getting a new update as the old code is becoming obsolete.

7- Impressionist

top open source presentation software

Impressionist is a visual 3D editor for creating stunning impress.js presentations. It uses Electron to build a visual WYSIWYG for Jmpress.js.

However, it is tricky to install, therefore there are video tutorials on how to make your edition up and running on Windows and Linux.

8- Reveal.js with R Studio

The R language is a primary language for data scientists and engineers, many of them use it for everyday purposes. This is a handy tool for them to create a catchy presentation within R Studio using Reveal.js.

9- Reveal Hugo

top open source presentation software

This one is an addition for Hugo Static Site Generator to create presentation websites using Reveal.js.

10- Reveal.js 3D

top open source presentation software

Although, the Reveal.js library does not have 3D support , some developers decided to make a 3D Reveal.js edition. It works with Google Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox, yet the lazy-loading option does not work well with some browsers.

11- ShowPreper

ShowPreper is a free open-source web-based presentation that is based on Impress.js, and Bespoke.js libraries. It is released as an open source project under the MIT license.

top open source presentation software

Gosspi is an amazing web-based slideshow and presentation editor, It uses Impress.js. It is considered the open source alternative for Prezi.com

13- Reveal.js Simple Menu

top open source presentation software

This is a simple library that adds a simple navigation menu for your Reveal.js slides. You can customize the menu position, selection and auto-generate menus easily.

Terminal based presentation

This section for old school terminal users, who prefer doing many through their terminal apps.

Slides is a terminal-based presentation with Markdown file processor that supports tables, code, simple diagrams, and more useful features.

Slides is written with the Go programming language, and it is packed by many contributors.

top open source presentation software

The present app is a colorful terminal-based presentation written with Python. It supports colors, and comes with many fancy effects.

The app works directly with Markdown files, and converts Markdown directly into rich slides that you can view directly within your terminal.

The terminal Matrix effect is one of the best catchy transition you can use there.

top open source presentation software

patat ( P resentations A top T he A NSI T erminal ) is a small tool that allows you to show presentations using only an ANSI terminal. It does not require ncurses .

patat features highlight

  • Leverages the great Pandoc library to support many input formats including Literate Haskell.
  • Supports smart slide splitting.
  • Slides can be split up into multiple fragments
  • There is a live reload mode.
  • Theming support including 24-bit RGB.
  • Auto advancing with configurable delay.
  • Optionally re-wrapping text to terminal width with proper indentation.
  • Syntax highlighting for nearly one hundred languages generated from Kate syntax files.
  • Experimental images support.
  • Supports evaluating code snippets and showing the result.
  • Written in Haskell.

4- lookatme

top open source presentation software

lookatme is an interactive, extensible, terminal-based markdown presentation tool.

lookatme features highlights

  • Markdown rendering
  • Built-in tutorial slides lookatme --tutorial
  • Live (input file modification time watching) and manual reloading
  • Live terminals embedded directly in slides
  • Syntax highlighting using the Pygments library
  • Loading external files into code blocks
  • Support for contrib extensions
  • Smart slide splitting
  • Progressive slides with <!-- stop --> comments between block elements

5- SSH Slides

top open source presentation software

SSH Slides is an SSH server that hosts terminal-based presentations where your viewers can follow along in their own terminals. This service is currently located at slides.tseivan.com .

top open source presentation software

mdp is yet another terminal Markdown presentation tool. It is written in the C language. mdp can easily be installed on macOS using Homebrew and MacPorts. Debian and Ubuntu users can use the DEB package, while Arch Linux users can get it directly from the AUR repos.

7- Showtmux

top open source presentation software

Showtmux creates terminal-based interactive presentations. It can be used to script terminal-based demos ahead of time, and play them in tmux.

8- dss (Dead Simple Slides)

top open source presentation software

Dead Simple Slides (DSS) is a text/terminal based slide presentation tool that reads .txt files for formatted slides. These slides are then displayed to the terminal.

Presentation and slideshow apps are essential tools for making educational and informative document to present in meetings or in classroom. While they have different shapes, styles, extensions and features, we encourage you to go through and test the ones in the category you require, evaluate the features, and pick the one that fits your workflow.

If you are going with an office suite style presentation we recommend LibreOffice, as it is proven reliable and solid for countless users over the years.

Do you know any other open source free presentation app that we missed, kindly send us a hit, to add it to this list.

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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.

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The 8 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives

Professional results for tight budgets

top open source presentation software

  • 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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3 open source alternatives to PowerPoint

Business presentation

Vector Open Stock. CC BY-SA 3.0.

PowerPoint is one of those programs whose use has become so ingrained in the corporate world that it is probably running the risk of becoming completely genericized, in the same way that some people use Kleenex to refer to all tissues, or BAND-AIDs to refer to all bandages.

But presenting a slideshow doesn't have to mean using PowerPoint. There are a number of totally capable open source alternatives to PowerPoint for giving visual presentations. In many cases, the features of these “alternatives” are so compelling that, unless you're absolutely forced to use PowerPoint, I don't know why you still would.

I've got a few new presentations to give coming up in the next couple of months that are essentially being developed from scratch, I thought it would be a great time to take a look at all of the open source presentation tools out there, and decide if it would be a good time to try out a new tool for any of these upcoming talks.

It's also worth taking a little time to ask yourself what assumptions you are making about your presentation needs, and what kind of tool makes the most sense to use. For example, do you need to be able to present off of any computer, or share your presentation with others and be assured that they will be able to open it? Will Internet access be assured when you're presenting, or do you need a solution that will work offline as well?

After trying out a few different tools, I think I'd lump the ones I found into three major buckets: traditional desktop tools, web-based presentation tools, and then "other", which in my case, consisted of some terminal-based tools, but depending on your needs, your "other" category may consist of something else. For example, I've seen a presentation given entirely from an Android device with a screen-casting ability. But in any case, let's look as some of the great open source contenders in each of these three main categories.

Desktop presentation tools

Desktop presentation tools provide the closest experience to the traditional PowerPoint experience, both on the design side and the presentation side. If you're just looking to be able to put together some formatted text with a few images, perhaps a transition or two, add a few speaker notes, and be able to email out your presentation to colleagues, this is more than likely the route you should take.

I've found LibreOffice Impress to be, well, impressive enough that I haven't needed an alternative on the desktop. It works reasonably well at importing PowerPoint presentations, assuming that the file you're opening doesn't have any sort of crazy formatting or weird fonts, so it's a good choice if you're working with slides from other people.

It's also incredibly intuitive if you're already used to working with other LibreOffice tools, or really any standard office suite. You'll find all of the basic text formatting, shape drawing, image importing, chart making, and other tools you'll need to put together a basic business presentation. And LibreOffice is, of course, a cross-platform tool, so you should be able to easily share documents across Windows, Mac, and Linux, while being able to export back to PowerPoint format if required.

I've heard similarly positive feedback for Calligra Stage , which grew out of the KOffice project, as being both approachable to people of any skill level while still having enough features to make a reasonably advanced presentation. You'll find it with many KDE-based Linux distributions, or it can be installed independently.

Web presentation tools

Web presentation tools have been my preferred format for a while, if for no other reason except that HTML-based presentations are very easy to use with version control, and very intuitive to edit as someone who spends a good portion of my day doing markup already. If you can make something work on a web page, you can make it work in a web-based presentation: interactive charts, maps, videos, and more. Plus, web-based presentations are incredibly easy to share: just give out the URL, or bundle up all of the code onto a flash drive and present from nearly any computer system of your choosing.

I highly recommend you check out Joshua Allen Holm's roundup of three open source web frameworks for presentations, in which he looks at Impress.js, Hovercraft, and Strut in some detail. My favorite tool in this space remains Reveal.js .

Why Reveal.js? The framework is simple to use and allows for rather elegant code. It supports a number of features out of the box that, frankly, allow for some really cool presentation features, including zooming, parallax backgrounds, beautiful transitions, and great code markup. It supports Markdown inline, or you can even write your whole presentation in Markdown and then import it.

If you're not an HTML junkie, the commercial service Slides.com is based on the open source Reveal.js, and you can easily import or export to a revision control system of your choosing.

A presentation from the terminal?

Bear with me for a moment, I have one more idea to present (ha!). Have you ever considered presenting from your terminal? No, I'm not kidding. While it's not going to win an award for style, presenting a text-based presentation straight from the terminal could earn you some serious geek cred, but more importantly, introducing an artificial limitation of a text-only environment is going to force you to focus on your words instead of fancy gimmicks.

As a friend of Vim, my new favorite tool for terminal-based presentations is Vimdeck . Vimdeck is an MIT-licensed tool that turns Markdown into a set of files, one per slide, which are then opened in Vim, and then sets up some keybindings for easy movement through your deck. You can give your slides a surprising amount of customization, including syntax-highlighted, a headline text font, and more. The Vroom project is another Vim-related presentation tool worth checking out.

Why do this at all? Well, you can host your presentation almost anywhere; all you need on the presenting computer is a terminal with SSH. You can easily version the files. You can even use a tool like gotty to easily share your terminal-based presentation as a web page for others to view. It's an unconventional idea, but for technical presentations, one you might consider.

Obviously, these aren't the only open source presentation tools out there. It may even be worth asking yourself, for a given presentation, if a slides-based tool is the right choice at all. If you're presenting the same data on a recurring basis, would creating a dashboard make more sense? Are slides the right level of formality for your presentation, or is throwing a collaborative document on the screen and editing in real-time a better fit? Don't immediately think that a presentation has to equal sequentially advancing slides.

Regardless of what tool you use, remember, it's just a tool. Your audience isn't going to be nearly as impressed by the tool you use as by quality of the content you're presenting, and ultimately, by your ability to present it. Don't dwell for too long on picking the perfect tool; instead, find one that works for you, and move on to practice, practice, and more practice! That said, do let us know what presentation tool you use, and why, in the comments below.

Jason Baker

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9 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives

top open source presentation software

Why even look for a PowerPoint alternative? PowerPoint is tough. But I'm sure you already know that. If you landed here, then you’re one of the millions frustrated with PowerPoint’s inability to support the modern work mindset of "work smart, not hard." Instead, you're often stuck tinkering with text boxes and slide layouts for hours on end, instead of focusing on what really matters: presenting for impact and telling a good story. Interestingly enough, Microsoft’s PowerPoint is marketed to everyone, but we'd agree that most users don’t benefit from its clunky interface, lack of design guidance, and limited features. But still, Ye Olde Standby boasts 500 million users worldwide. And we predict that maybe 2% of those users are actually pleased with PowerPoint.

After all, presenters have enough to worry about, with potentially embarrassing technical issues, public speaking anxiety, and increasingly distracted audiences to solve for. The presentation design part of the process should be the easiest stage. We have good news on this front: The rise of cloud-based free PowerPoint alternatives are paving the way for teams to create pro-quality presentations in less time, collaborate seamlessly with their team, and maybe—just maybe— enjoy presentations for once. So today we’re examining the top 10 free alternative presentation software, based on brutally honest reviews from diehard Microsoft PowerPoint fans over on Capterra (the largest online peer review website for software). Let’s see what real presenters think! ‍

PowerPoint Alternatives For Both Mac and PC (Cloud)

top open source presentation software

#1: Beautiful.ai (5 Star Capterra Score)

It's easy with B.ai to produce really nice-looking presentation slides. While you don't have full control over everything, that is on purpose. By 'constraining' you via various slide templates—which have a good degree of controllable variation and flexibility, but not full control—you end up with really good looking slides in a short time. Essentially B.ai prevents you from wasting time and energy on dead-end paths that would give you ugly-looking slides. —Leonard C.

Beautiful.ai is presentation software that designs your presentation for you in real time. The design-focused software combines learning behavior and artistry of professional graphic designers to visualize crystal clear ideas. Never offend your audience with messy content again—and look like a rockstar presenter every time.

Beautiful.ai offers 60+ ‘smart templates’. Unlike PowerPoint, Smart Slide templates handle the manual labor of layout, image placement, text boxes, margins, and aesthetics. Have a huge block of text? Sounds like an eyesore. Smart templates convey more information, with well-balanced attractive slides.

The "design a.i." updates your presentation as the content is added or removed, automatically, project schedules are shortened and streamlined.

  • Genuine free PowerPoint alternative - great features included in the free Basic plan!
  • Create presentations in 3 easy steps: choose a design theme, add a template and then the content
  • Presentation design is optimized in real-time 
  • Good design principles ensure your audience learns effectively 
  • Lack of full creative control of slide layout
  • You cannot edit a Beautiful.ai presentation after export

Price to Upgrade: Pro version is $12 per month annually and includes performance analytics to the presentation, custom fonts, and a desktop player. 

top open source presentation software

#2: Google Slides (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

It's a bit of a learning curve when migrating to the platform, and some may feel a little lost. But I do not think it's overwhelming, nor do I feel that this should deter you from giving it a try. —Russell P.

PowerPoint alternative—Google Slides— is web-based presentation software. For GSuite users, this software is a no-brainer, with its integrated apps like Google Hangouts and collaboration through Drive.

With commenting, chat and real-time editing features, GoogleSlides allows teams to keep their presentations on track and provide crucial feedback instantly that can make or break a project. Automatic save and recorded history gives you the ability to view changes and restore to older versions. The "blank slate" authoring abilities on each slide are best for people that understand the principles of good design, as there's little to no guidance when it comes to laying out your content.

  • Pre-made presentations, pitches, and portfolios for marketing and sales professionals
  • Save and convert slides as PowerPoint files
  • Edit presentation on the mobile app
  • Limited typefaces, transitions, and animations
  • Converting from PowerPoint to Google Slides will cause loss of some animations effects
  • No media library or screen sharing

Price to Upgrade: The basic package for GoogleSlides is $6 per month with 30 GB of storage. With this tier, you’ll receive 24/7 support and mobile management options to work remotely.

top open source presentation software

#3: Prezi (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

It is a program that allows you to show the elements in a striking way, with movement, which makes it more interesting for the viewer. —Carlos A.

Prezi is an alternative to PowerPoint known for its non-linear style and ‘reveal zoom’ feature. Popular among students, Prezi stands out with its unique single canvas interface that pulls an audience in right off the bat.

Prezi is not a snoozefest, to say the least. The large canvas is used as a diagram to connect ideas to subcategories and show relationships between them. A Prezi presentation begins zoomed out, then narrows in on specific details taking its audience on a whirlwind journey. 

  • Breaks away from traditional slide format 
  • Collaborate and receive feedback and comments through chat
  • Zoom animation can cause dizziness
  • Difficult to train and teach people who are used to PowerPoint
  • Backgrounds have unchangeable fonts and colors

Price to Upgrade: The standard upgrade is $7 per month with privacy options, import PowerPoint slides, and unlimited presentations.

top open source presentation software

#4: Visme (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

It's a great product and well worth the time and money if you want some unique and functional ways to present content to a wide audience. The design software is a bit clunky on the zooming in/out and the use of layers, fine-tuning, and other options. Also, I have all of my projects visible on the main page and it can be hard to find what I'm looking for. —Matt T.

‍ Visme is a free Powerpoint alternative that revamps dense information into visual candy that's fun to absorb. Infographics, maps, and charts are Visme’s main attraction. We love data in bite sizes. Presenters can use modern and contemporary design styles to win over audiences.  Animated objects, pop-ups, and rollovers add new dimensions to break down patterns and trends within your industry. PROS:

  • Product tutorials to guide you through creating a presentation
  • Create slides from scratch or use pre-made templates
  • 400+ classic free templates and 400+ modern
  • ‘Autosave’ feature to recover lost data
  • Only 5 projects in free version
  • Posts are made public
  • Doesn't allow you to copy and paste into Visme from another tool or document

Price to Upgrade: Starting upgrade is $14 per month with access to 500,000 stock images from Visme’s library and all charts and widgets. 

top open source presentation software

#5: Slides (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

Slides platform gives users 'free-reign' to create slides that are dynamic, great for both developers and designers. Where many other PowerPoint alternatives offer a plethora of  templates, Slides gives none. —Hasin A.

Slides is a presentation app for creatives and developers to present and design with freedom. Slides have incredible flexibility, it's fully open-sourced with access to HTML, JavaScript, and CSS versions of your presentation. Why is this great as an alternative for PowerPoint? Your team can add custom animation styles or host the project on your business website. Develop your signature style to be remembered at conferences, summits, and with important clients.

  • Only fully open source presentation software available
  • Present on mobile and use your phone as a remote control
  • Versatile for designers and programmers
  • More time-consuming altering source code and CSS
  • The free version of presentations are public, searchable, and includes ads

Price to Upgrade: The lite upgrade is $5 monthly with unlimited private decks and PDF conversion.

top open source presentation software

#6: Slidebean  (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

I've used the classic Powerpoint for many years, and I still use that at the time for particular reasons when I need hefty presentations rich in facts and figures. ….I find Slidebean does a neat job at separating content from design. —Edwin S.

Slidebean bills itself as the world’s first AI-powered presentation design tool, but is it the best on the market? Geared towards startups, Slidebean has ready-made content blocks that you can use or maneuver around and helps presenters who prefer written content to deliver your message over graphics.

  • Readability, aesthetic and alignment is done by an algorithm
  • Your slide designs are evaluated and corrected in 0.97 seconds
  • Photos are aligned with advanced neural network
  • You can share presentations only through an upgrade
  • Free templates have limited flexibility

Price to Upgrade: The starter package is $98 per year and comes with basic content templates, share, and unlimited presentations.

top open source presentation software

#7: Powtoon (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

I have used Powtoons for my professional life, to create How To videos and instructional or educational information. It is really easy to use and engaging for people to follow along for a few minutes. —Sadie R.

Powtoon is a presentation and video maker used by the brands Apple, Coca Cola, and Starbucks. Powtoon’s digital graphics and illustration styles are great for corporate campaigns and scripted, drag and drop templates cut down your creation time to 20 minutes.

  • Live webinars and training center to guide users over from PowerPoint
  • Interactive photos and icons that move on a timer
  • Cartoon characters to add to your presentation or explainer video
  • The free account only allows presentations up to 3 minutes 
  • Uploading images and adding videos to timeline is tedious

Price to Upgrade: $16 per month will get you access to royalty-free images and 24/7 support.

Free PowerPoint Alternatives For Mac Only (Desktop)

top open source presentation software

#8: Haiku Deck (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

I like Haiku Deck, but you need to know your end-goal or purpose. If you need to create extensive slideshows with hyperlinks, videos, specific images, large amounts of information, then this might not be the platform for you. —Miriam T.

Haiku Deck is a niche presentation software that doesn’t allow variety, unlike PowerPoint. Just as Beautiful.ai restricts users’ customizations to get perfect results every time, Haiku Deck limits slide decks to achieve two styles. A background image with text overlay and simple pie and bar charts.

  • A small pool of templates that will not overwhelm you
  • 40 million royalty-free images
  • Not a great option for elaborate ideas or powerful messages

Price to Upgrade: $9.99 per month for unlimited slide decks, audio narration, and Zuru.

Free PowerPoint Alternatives For PC Only (Desktop)

top open source presentation software

#9: LibreOffice Impress (4.5 Star Capterra Score)

Not only do you benefit from the initial cost of the program (as opposed to MS Office) you also benefit due to free updates. Sharing LibreOffice documents of all types with Microsoft users has proven to be flawless, with few or any very minor compatibility issues. —Mack S.

LibreOffice Impress is an open-source alternative to PowerPoint. Planning, research, and organization become simplified with Impress’ various view modes. The normal, outline, notes, and slide sorter view modes aid your content production and editing process. 

  • Build and control a 3D scene
  • Control manual, timed, or a pointer for presentation
  • No onboarding product training

Price to Upgrade: LibreOffice Impress remains 100% free!

Final Judgement

The main takeaway from all of this? There are a lot of free powerpoint alternatives out there, some with more free features than others, so it really depends on what your preferences are in terms of usability, export options, design quality, et cetera. The demand for smarter presentation programs is slowly increasing, especially as these new free powerpoint alternatives focus on ease of use so the learning curve is minimal. Speaking broadly, free PowerPoint alternatives win over users who want professionally designed presentations with less effort and legwork. From simple interfaces, to advanced customizations and design automation, there's a smorgasbord of solutions out there so we suggest you start with the first powerpoint alternative listed, Beautiful.ai , and work your way down until you find something that works. If you’re curious how Beautiful.ai measures up against PowerPoint, check out our comparison battle here .

Maria Bell

Maria Bell is a content strategist for SaaS, e-commerce and technology companies based in San Francisco. You can find her at www.mariabell.co.

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6 Open Source Tools to create inspiring presentations

6 Open Source Tools to create inspiring presentations

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6 Open Source Presentation Tools

As a software developer, PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Sheets quickly become boring for presentations. You want something different, you want to create the presentation with Markdown files, HTML, or JavaScript. There are some open source solutions for that, like reveal.js , mdx-deck , Spectacle , remark , webslides or impress.js . Each solution allows you to create presentations yourself in minutes, push them to GitHub, and share them with your audience.

Personally, I have tried mdx-deck and Impress.js in the past. Which one do you use?

⛓ Links of the Week

  • Last week I told you about ScrollMagic . This week I have another similar tool for you: lax.js . With lax.js you can also make great animations when the user scrolls too. Vaibhav Khulbe describes in his article "Create a crazy input interaction with lax.js. 🤪" how you can also use lax.js when the visitor fills in an input field.
  • I am a very big admirer of CSS-Art. I admire the patience, precision, and attention to detail that the artists invest. Among the CSS artists is Kass . Her Ring camera looks deceptively real , doesn't it?
  • With React Icons it's a breeze to add Bootstrap, Feather, Font Awesome, Hero-, VS Code, css.gg , and more popular icons to your React app.
  • Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to change anything in your Docker container image and could still shrink it by a factor of up to 30x? That's what docker-slim promises!
  • Static site generators are becoming more and more popular. Eleventy , a JavaScript alternative to Jekyll, promises to be another simple solution.
  • While we're on the topic of static site generators, Speedlify lets you quickly and easily create a web performance and accessibility benchmark. Here are some Eleventy benchmarks .
  • At work the other day we were discussing if and how it is possible to keep multiple React mini-apps in sync with Redux in one document. Here is a clear example that shows how it works. It's easier than you might think.
  • When I started streaming , I also looked into the topic of "virtual-cams". Not because I use it with OBS, but because I wondered if I could use OBS' output in Skype, Slack, and other apps. And lo and behold, it's actually possible on macOS as well. Thanks to the open-source solution of John Boiles and the other contributors.

📺 My latest Video

🐦 tweets of the week, 💜 special thanks to these inspiring people.

See you next week, Stefan

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The best presentation software

These powerpoint alternatives go beyond the basics..

Hero image with logos of the best presentation software

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

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

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

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

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

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

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

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

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

The best presentation software: at a glance

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

Canva, our pick for the best free presentation app

Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for AI-powered design

Beautiful.ai (web, mac, windows).

Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

Generative AI features aren't great yet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

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

Prezi interface

Prezi pros:

Doesn't restrict you to standard presentation structure

Lots of customization options

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

Prezi cons:

Steep learning curve

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (web, ios, android).

Powtoon pros:

Timing automatically changes based on the content on the slide

Can toggle between slideshow and video

Can orient presentation as horizontal, vertical, or square

Powtoon cons:

Limited free plan

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (web).

Genially, our pick for the best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially pros:

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

You can set universal branding guidelines

Unlimited creations on the free plan

Genially cons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

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

Pitch, our pick for the best presentation software for collaborating with your team

Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Start live video calls straight from decks

Pitch cons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best simple presentation app

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

Zoho Show, our pick for the best simple presentation app

Zoho Show pros:

Simple and easy to use

Version history and ability to lock slides

Completely free

Zoho Show cons:

Templates are pretty basic

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

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

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

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

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

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma, our pick for the best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Chatbot-like experience

Can still manually edit the presentation

Gamma cons:

Not as much granular customization

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

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

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

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

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

What about the old standbys?

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

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

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

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

Related reading:

8 Canva AI tools to improve your design workflow

The best online whiteboards for collaboration

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

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

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Kiera Abbamonte

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

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  • Open source

Top 3 open-source alternatives to PowerPoint

The presentation software PowerPoint is proprietary, and hence not so transparent and less cost-effective than some competitors. Discover the best open-source PowerPoint alternatives in this article.

Top 3 open-source alternatives to PowerPoint

ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors

ONLYOFFICE presentation editor for desktop is a free PowerPoint alternative for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The app is open-source and you can find the code on GitHub.

With the existing functionality of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, you can make creative slides and add text, objects, tables, background patterns etc. Your presentations can become even more interactive with transitions and customizable animations. The interface looks exactly the same as you have in PowerPoint, so it won’t take much time to adapt to a new application.

Plugins extend the basic functionality of the ONLYOFFICE presentation editor. For example, you can insert YouTube videos or translate text in presentations using Google or DeepL really quickly.

The core ONLYOFFICE formats for presentations are PPTX and PPT, but ODP and PPSX are also supported. Also, you can save each slide as a PNG or JPG image and use the pictures in another type of content.

ONLYOFFICE presentation editor has a special Presenter View mode, where you can add notes to highlight important parts of your speech and comfortably navigate between slides.

Unveil your creativity with the best open-source PowerPoint alternative for Windows, Linux, and Mac — ONLYOFFICE. Installation options include Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage. Also, ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors are pre-installed on many Linux distributions .

ONLYOFFICE also provides a collaborative open-source office suite for self-hosting with text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and fillable forms.

LibreOffice Impress

LibreOffice is another open-source alternative to PowerPoint, which allows creating, editing, and saving presentations in the ODP (OpenDocument) format.

Top 3 open-source alternatives to PowerPoint

The interface in LibreOffice is just a bit similar to what you see in Microsoft PowerPoint. You’ll need to play with the elements to get used to their location on your screen, but indeed they are positioned logically.

As for presentation features, you’re able to draw and add objects, such as diagrams, create 2D and 3D images from text with the Fontworks tool, and use animations and transitions to let objects and slides move.

LibreOffice also provides a gallery of presentation templates if you’re not sure where to start.

Calligra Stage

Developed by KDE, Calligra Stage is a powerful and free open-source alternative to PowerPoint. It allows working with various objects, such as text, charts, images, graphics.

Top 3 open-source alternatives to PowerPoint

Calligra Stage also uses the ODP (OpenDocument) format as the primary one. That means, your presentations will be displayed without distortions in other apps working with this extension, but also OOXML-based suites, such as ONLYOFFICE Docs and Microsoft 365.

This open-source presentation app is built by developers from many countries and includes all necessary features: layouts, presenter slide overview, multiple master sliders in one presentation, transitions and notes.

Useful links

7 best open-source project management tools in 2022

5 open-source Monday.com alternatives

How to include animation in PowerPoint presentation?

How to add transitions in PowerPoint slides?

Recent posts

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The HTML Presentation Framework

Created by Hakim El Hattab and contributors

top open source presentation software

Hello There

reveal.js enables you to create beautiful interactive slide decks using HTML. This presentation will show you examples of what it can do.

Vertical Slides

Slides can be nested inside of each other.

Use the Space key to navigate through all slides.

Down arrow

Basement Level 1

Nested slides are useful for adding additional detail underneath a high level horizontal slide.

Basement Level 2

That's it, time to go back up.

Up arrow

Not a coder? Not a problem. There's a fully-featured visual editor for authoring these, try it out at https://slides.com .

Pretty Code

Code syntax highlighting courtesy of highlight.js .

Even Prettier Animations

Point of view.

Press ESC to enter the slide overview.

Hold down the alt key ( ctrl in Linux) and click on any element to zoom towards it using zoom.js . Click again to zoom back out.

(NOTE: Use ctrl + click in Linux.)

Auto-Animate

Automatically animate matching elements across slides with Auto-Animate .

Touch Optimized

Presentations look great on touch devices, like mobile phones and tablets. Simply swipe through your slides.

Add the r-fit-text class to auto-size text

Hit the next arrow...

... to step through ...

... a fragmented slide.

Fragment Styles

There's different types of fragments, like:

fade-right, up, down, left

fade-in-then-out

fade-in-then-semi-out

Highlight red blue green

Transition Styles

You can select from different transitions, like: None - Fade - Slide - Convex - Concave - Zoom

Slide Backgrounds

Set data-background="#dddddd" on a slide to change the background color. All CSS color formats are supported.

Image Backgrounds

Tiled backgrounds, video backgrounds, ... and gifs, background transitions.

Different background transitions are available via the backgroundTransition option. This one's called "zoom".

You can override background transitions per-slide.

Iframe Backgrounds

Since reveal.js runs on the web, you can easily embed other web content. Try interacting with the page in the background.

Marvelous List

  • No order here

Fantastic Ordered List

  • One is smaller than...
  • Two is smaller than...

Tabular Tables

Clever quotes.

These guys come in two forms, inline: The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from and block:

“For years there has been a theory that millions of monkeys typing at random on millions of typewriters would reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. The Internet has proven this theory to be untrue.”

Intergalactic Interconnections

You can link between slides internally, like this .

Speaker View

There's a speaker view . It includes a timer, preview of the upcoming slide as well as your speaker notes.

Press the S key to try it out.

Export to PDF

Presentations can be exported to PDF , here's an example:

Global State

Set data-state="something" on a slide and "something" will be added as a class to the document element when the slide is open. This lets you apply broader style changes, like switching the page background.

State Events

Additionally custom events can be triggered on a per slide basis by binding to the data-state name.

Take a Moment

Press B or . on your keyboard to pause the presentation. This is helpful when you're on stage and want to take distracting slides off the screen.

  • Right-to-left support
  • Extensive JavaScript API
  • Auto-progression
  • Parallax backgrounds
  • Custom keyboard bindings

- Try the online editor - Source code & documentation

Create Stunning Presentations on the Web

reveal.js is an open source HTML presentation framework. It's a tool that enables anyone with a web browser to create fully-featured and beautiful presentations for free.

Presentations made with reveal.js are built on open web technologies. That means anything you can do on the web, you can do in your presentation. Change styles with CSS, include an external web page using an <iframe> or add your own custom behavior using our JavaScript API .

The framework comes with a broad range of features including nested slides , Markdown support , Auto-Animate , PDF export , speaker notes , LaTeX support and syntax highlighted code .

Ready to Get Started?

It only takes a minute to get set up. Learn how to create your first presentation in the installation instructions !

Online Editor

If you want the benefits of reveal.js without having to write HTML or Markdown try https://slides.com . It's a fully-featured visual editor and platform for reveal.js, by the same creator.

Supporting reveal.js

This project was started and is maintained by @hakimel with the help of many contributions from the community . The best way to support the project is to become a paying member of Slides.com —the reveal.js presentation platform that Hakim is building.

top open source presentation software

Slides.com — the reveal.js presentation editor.

Become a reveal.js pro in the official video course.

The Best Presentation Software of 2023 – Free and Paid Alternatives

Discover the best free, freemium, and paid presentation software options for 2023. From Canva and Haiku Deck to Genially and Beautiful.AI, these are the tools you should check out! Short on time? Peruse our comparison table!

top open source presentation software

Dag Hendrik Lerdal

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Although this list, just like our competitors, is made to pique your interest in SlideDog , we won’t list 50+ PowerPoint “alternatives,” bashing Office PowerPoint and claiming it’s dead with no other reason than it being a mature, stable, and the de-facto slide creation tool for grown-ups. 

And we will not list every “presentation-related” software we can find . That means no listing of animation software like “PowToon,” sales & marketing software like “CustomShow,” and publishing platforms like “SlideShare (LinkedIn).”

Instead, we’ll show you an opinionated and prioritized list that’s comprehensive (but not bloated) and focused 100% on slide creation software that we consider real alternatives to PowerPoint. 

Plus, we are going to keep this list up to date.

The Best Presentation Software in 2023, Compared

A note on slidedog.

top open source presentation software

SlideDog is not a real PowerPoint alternative, but it is a great supplement.

SlideDog presents your files seamlessly and professionally to the audience at meetings, events, sales presentations, conferences, lectures, and more. It’s a Windows app that lets you switch between various presentation media such as PowerPoint, PDF, Prezi, video, and web pages. 

It’s perfect for people who use multiple forms of media in their presentations and a great tool at events where you have multiple presenters.

To learn more about SlideDog and its other features, such as Live Sharing, Audience Interaction, and the SlideDog Remote App, check out the features and download the free version .

PowerPoint Alternative #1: Microsoft Sway Presentations

If you want to stay within the Microsoft ecosystem, you’ll want to check out Microsoft Sway . Although it’s technically designed for presentations, you can use it for newsletters and other media storytelling.

Microsoft Sway

Microsoft Sway Core Features

  • Integration with the O365 suite, as well as OneDrive, YouTube, and Twitter, for easy content embedding.
  • Templates, interactive and dynamic presentation elements, such as navigation buttons and embedded web content.
  • Collaboration features.
  • Cross-platform accessibility, supporting desktop, web, and mobile (iOS and Android) versions.
  • Analytics and tracking.
  • Automatic layout and design suggestions.

Microsoft Sway OS

Desktop and web.

Microsoft Sway Pricing

Microsoft Sway is available if you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription (starting from $6.99/month). You can also use it for free with limited features. 

Is Microsoft Sway a Replacement for PowerPoint?

Not really. Sway lacks presentation control features like remote control or presenter view. Still, it’s a good tool for mini-presentations and interactive documents.

Microsoft doesn’t seem to be investing a lot into it (it even dropped out of the iOS store), so don’t lean on it as your main presentation tool.

PowerPoint Alternative #2: Google Slides – The Best Workhorse Presentation Software [Free]

Google Slides is the new PowerPoint, or so they say. In any case, it’s a handy, widely-used presentation tool, so if you want to use it company-wide, you won’t struggle with user adoption. Plus, it’s very beginner-friendly and integrates with the rest of your Google ecosystem.

top open source presentation software

Google Slides Features

  • Converts PowerPoint Files to Google Slides and vice versa.
  • Smart Compose AI feature for creating presentations faster. 
  • Real-time collaboration (including chatting, comments, and reviews).
  • Templates, videos, gifs, images, graphic assets. Plus, add-ons to include audio and more. 
  • Beaming to a secondary screen using Chromecast and AirPlay.
  • Presenter View with notes and upcoming slides enabled by a secondary browser window.
  • Built-in audience interaction , allowing Q&A that will show up in Presenter View.
  • Remote control via an iOS or Android device.
  • Google Meet remote presentation.

Google Slides  OS

Web-based app, mobile app.

Google Slides Pricing

Free. Paid Workspace plans at $12/user/month for meeting recordings, group policies, and online support.  

PowerPoint Alternative #3: Apple’s Keynote Is One of the Sleekest Presentation Software [Free]

Keynote is mainly used by people committed to the Apple ecosystem. Although you can export your Keynote slides to PowerPoint , it won’t guarantee that everything will be presented the same way. Still, you can also use Keynote on a PC, provided that you use iWork, and it’s definitely one of the sleekest presentation tools. 

keynote presentation tool

Apple Keynote Presentation Features

  • Open, edit, and save PowerPoint files. Existing Keynote presentations can be exported to PowerPoint. (Beware of glitches caused by the file type conversion.)
  • Built-in live collaboration.
  • Control the presentation from an iOS device using Keynote Remote.
  • Presenter view with notes and a preview of the next slide.
  • Present remotely to an audience with Keynote Live using an Internet-connected Mac, iPad, or iPhone.
  • Templates, effects, animations, graphic assets + Apple Pencil additions. 
  • Live video feeds and YouTube and Vimeo videos. 

Desktop + Mobile (iOS & Android) + Web (requires iCloud account).

Keynote Pricing 

Keynote is free.

#4 LibreOffice Impress: The Simple Open-Source Presentation Software [Free]

LibreOffice is a community-driven, free, and open-source office suite. It comes with Impress, a desktop software for creating and editing slide presentations, similar to Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote. In general, it can get clunky like most open-source tools, but it’s still a good option for simple presentation software.

top open source presentation software

LibreOffice Features

  • Open, edit, and save PowerPoint files. Beware: not all of PowerPoint’s features are implemented in LibreOffice, so fonts, images, and drawings may appear scrambled or not at all.
  • A server version with Live Collaboration features.
  • Remote control with tablets and phones with Impress Remote for iOS and Android devices.
  • Animations, templates, effects, 3D models.
  • Presenter view.

LibreOffice OS

LibreOffice works on Windows, iOS, Linux, as well as Android. 

LibreOffice Pricing

LibreOffice is 100% free.

#5 Slides: The Best Overall Presentation Software [Paid]

Slides sets itself apart with a minimalist approach, as opposed to the complex PowerPoint interface. And with the rise of AI, it also incorporates OpenAI’s features to help you create presentation content faster. 

However, a unique feature of Slides is that the slide decks are pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so they can be self-hosted and customized down to the last line of JavaScript.

slides.com presentations

Slides Features

  • Import PDFs and PowerPoints, turning them into a Slides presentation, but won’t translate all fonts and media correctly.
  • Live streaming.
  • Remote control.
  • Presenter view. 
  • Click, tap, and hover interactivity.
  • Use code blocks and Developer Mode for custom features.
  • AI for slide generation, content, etc.
  • Templates, (auto)animations, media library, integration with Unsplash and GIPHY, and video support.
  • Collaboration and team features. 

Slides works as a web-based app.

Slides Pricing

Slides pricing starts from $5/mo.

#6 Our Take on ZohoShow’s Presentation Software [Free]

If you’re already in the Zoho ecosystem, it might be worth considering ZohoShow . Some of the happiest users of ZohoShow I know are sales professionals looking for tools to create more engaging proposals and pitches. 

zoho show presentation software

ZohoShow Features

  • Import and export PowerPoint files.
  • Real-time collaboration and co-editing.
  • Remote control via phone or smartwatch using Zoho Show’s mobile app.
  • Templates, themes, and design elements.
  • Analytics and insights.
  • Interactive elements, including charts, tables, and multimedia content.
  • Apple TV and Android TV apps let you beam your presentations to a conference room.

ZohoShow OS

Web app, Android, iOS. 

ZohoShow Pricing

ZohoShow is free.

The Best Presentation Software #7: Prezi [Paid]

Prezi is one of the more, if not the most, innovative alternatives to PowerPoint, loved by presenters who prefer delivering information organically (and not with a scripted path). Rather than traditional slide-based presentations, this presentation software offers a zoomable canvas where users can create visually engaging and interactive presentations.

prezi presentation tool

Prezi Features

  • Import PowerPoints, turning them into a Prezi presentation. You mostly get the correctly formatted content of the slides, but you have to turn it into a proper zoomable mind-map Prezi on your own.
  • Dynamic zooming and panning functionality for a more engaging and cinematic presentation experience.
  • Real-time collaboration.
  • Integration with multimedia content, including videos, images, and audio.
  • Templates, design elements, infographics, and more.
  • Present over video.
  • Analytics. 

Desktop, web, and mobile (Android and iOS).

Prezi Pricing

Prezi starts from $5/month.

#8 Visme [Freemium]

Visme is a versatile presentation software you can use for (obviously) presentations, as well as documents, infographics, data visualizations, designs, and videos. It’s used by companies, schools, and more!

top open source presentation software

Visme Features

  • Import PowerPoint files and export presentations to PowerPoint, PDF, HTML, and more.
  • Drag-and-drop interface with a library of customizable templates, charts, icons, images, and multimedia assets.
  • Collaboration and co-editing features.
  • Animations, transitions, and interactive elements
  • Integration with third-party platforms, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and YouTube.
  • Pre-designed slide layouts and smart templates.

Visme Presentation Software OS

Desktop, web, and mobile.

Visme Pricing

Visme offers a free option, and the paid plans start from $12.25/month.

#9 Ludus Presentation Software: The Best Option for Figma Fans [Paid]

The founders describe Ludus as: “It’s like Sketch and Keynote had a baby in the cloud,” and I will admit that it looks sleek. (But maybe it’s just the dark mode!) If you’re looking for the best presentation software for designers , Ludus offers features like layer blending and more! 

ludus presentation software demo

Ludus Presentation Features

  • Figma-style editing, complete with layers, colorization, cropping, and more.
  • Add code to your slides.
  • Boost your efficiency with keyboard shortcuts.
  • Real-time collaboration (with a chat).
  • Interactive and animated elements, reusable Smart Blocks, gifs, videos, and more.
  • Presenter view (called the Speaker View).

Ludus works as a web-based and desktop app. 

Ludus Pricing

Ludus starts from $14.99/month/user.

#10 SlideBean [Freemium]

SlideBean is a presentation software that aims to simplify the presentation creation process by providing users with automated design tools and smart templates. These days, it specializes in helping founders build pitch decks , but it’s spreading like wildfire among startup teams, too.

The big caveat is that you can’t export the free presentations. If you want to do that, you’ll need to upgrade to their All-Access $228/year package (with an investor CRM and other startup goodies). 

slidebean presentations

SlideBean Features

  • AI-powered presentation creation, where users input content, and SlideBean generates a design.
  • Real-time collaboration features.
  • Smart slide templates and design recommendations.
  • Remote control via phone.

SlideBean OS

Slidebean pricing.

Free, but you’ll need the All-Access $228/year package to export presentations. 

#11 Is Canva a Good Presentation Tool? [Freemium]

Ahh, Canva ! It’s been helping SMBs create decent graphics for years. While not exclusively a presentation software, Canva offers a wide range of design templates and customization options suitable for various purposes, including presentations. I can’t count all the times I’ve seen startup founders run their pitch deck presentations on the web app. 

So, is Canva one of the best presentation software options in 2023? Let’s check out the features!

top open source presentation software

Canva Presentation Features

  • Extensive library of presentation templates, graphics, and design elements.
  • Drag & drop interface.
  • AI tools for composing content, syncing music, etc. 
  • Save presentations as PPTX, PDF, JPEG, and more.
  • Live chat during the presentation with Canva Live .
  • Magic shortcuts for special animations (think: the letter C for confetti rain).
  • Many, many more features with the Canva suite (logo design, social media graphics, flyers, proposals, etc.).

Web-based, Android app, and iOS app.

Canva Pricing

Canva offers a free plan, with paid plans starting from $12.99/mo/user.

#12 Beautiful.AI [Paid]

Is it beautiful? Is it AI? Definitely! When we’re discussing the best presentation software in 2023, we can’t omit the fact that AI is making the rounds (as you’ve noticed with all the Smart features in the previous contenders on the list).

And with Beautiful.AI , you get end-to-end enhancement, from smart templates to formatting and content!

top open source presentation software

Beautiful.AI Presentation Software Features

  • AI presentation features galore: Smart templates, auto-adapting slides (smart formatting), automatic animations, and more.
  • Photo, video, and icon gallery. Plus, charts, graphs, and other data visualization options.
  • Export presentations to PowerPoint and edit them in PowerPoint on the Beautiful.AI Pro plan.

Beautiful.AI OS

Web-based and desktop.

Beautiful.AI Pricing

Beautiful.AI starts from $12/month for individuals and from $40/mo/user for teams.

#13 Genially: The Interactive Presentation Software Option [Freemium]

Genially is a presentation software that focuses on creating interactive and immersive presentations, infographics, and other visual content. The interface is pretty similar to PowerPoint, but it’s smoother and offers a simpler experience. 

Personally, looking at it, I think it fits educational presentations well , while you might feel underwhelmed when using Genially for business presentations.

top open source presentation software

Genially Features

  • Import your PowerPoint slides and share or download your presentations as .MP4s, PDFs, HTML, and other formats. 
  • Template and graphic assets gallery.
  • Interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and hotspots.
  • Animation and transition effects.
  • Multimedia content support (including websites, videos, and audio).

Genially OS

Genially pricing .

Genially is hiding its pricing behind the sign-up page (an immediate no-no from me), but it offers a free plan. 

#14 Haiku Deck [Paid]

Rooted in the idea that you need to get rid of clutter and step into the flow zone to create beautiful presentations, Haiku Deck ’s understated presentation software might be a good choice for the PowerPoint convert.

top open source presentation software

HaikuDeck Features

  • Templates, fonts, image filters, and stock image gallery.
  • Simple (and a bit underwhelming) editor.
  • Embed videos from YouTube into your presentation.

HaikuDeck OS

Web-based, Windows, iOS app. 

HaikuDeck Pricing

HaikuDeck starts from $9.99/month. 

#15 FlowVella Presentations Review [Paid]

In addition to presentations, FlowVella also specializes in digital signage , with plenty of its customers using it to power their iPad kiosk apps.

You’ll also see quite a few real estate agents using it for listing presentations. And while the design looks more similar to PowerPoint than most of us would like, there’s no doubt it’s a handy presentation software option!

top open source presentation software

FlowVella Features

  • Interactive features such as navigation buttons, links, and interactive hotspots.
  • Integration with multimedia content, including images, videos, PDFs, and audio files.
  • Presentation templates and image gallery.
  • Kiosk mode.

FlowVella OS

Native mobile app for iOS, desktop, and web.

FlowVella Pricing

FlowVella starts from $10/month.

#16 Pitch.com Presentation Software [Freemium]

Finally, the last contender on our list of the best presentation software is Pitch – a tool primarily built for startup teams. The visuals are pretty sleek, too, and it has all the features you’d need to collaborate with your team.

top open source presentation software

Pitch Presentation Software Features

  • Collaborative editing and real-time teamwork features.
  • Brand kit features for consistency.
  • Template gallery & reusable templates and components.
  • PDF and PPTX exports.

Desktop and mobile apps, web-based.

Pitch Pricing

Pitch has a freemium plan, and the paid options start from €8/member/month.

Summary & Final Thoughts

The struggle to find a PowerPoint alternative and the best presentation software is neverending. However, remember that you have to find the tool that works best for your use case, team, and budget.

When it comes to our favorites, we built SlideDog to meet our multimedia demands (even if it’s not strictly a presentation tool). However, we love Google Slides for its level of integration with the Google ecosystem, and Pitch.com is a fantastic option for startups. 

On the other side of the equation, if you’re doubling down on AI, you might just find a good fit with Beautiful.AI.

But no matter what, remember that your ideal tool is here to enable your ideas . Put them front and center, and your presentation will be amazing!

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Every year churches spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the software needed to operate effectively and efficiently. We believe that within the Church the talent exists to create all the software that churches need and provide it free of charge.

Changing how we handle church software can not only save a lot of money, but also bring believers together. If we use the skills within our own community, we can make the software that the Church needs without the costly expense. This way, more of our funds can go directly to the Church's mission instead of overhead. It's about working together, saving money, and focusing on what truly matters.

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FreeShow Key Features

Powerful editing.

Limitless Customization: A Robust editor to alter text font, size, color, and add outlines, shadows, with almost boundless possibilities.

On-the-Fly Text Editing: Make live changes to your text during presentations with the Edit mode.

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Timed & Automated Play

Autoplay: Set timers on slides for seamless transitions.

Countdowns: Easily let your congregation know when services will start with built in countdowns.

MIDI Controls: Receive MIDI commands to advance slides or send MIDI commands on slide change to trigger lighting and other changes.

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Multiple Views

Simultaneous Outputs: Show the same presentation with different looks for your in-person audience, online audience, and a stage view for leaders.

Web Output: Users can connect to the presentation from their mobile devices. Perfect for pastor sermon notes or musicians.

NDI Support: We fully support output over NDI. No need for converters or SDI cables to send your lyrics to the computer running your online stream.

Remote Control: Allow your pastor or worship minister to control the show directly from their mobile device. Excellent for rehearsals of for smaller churches.

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Template & Design

Sleek Templates: Modify your slide styles swiftly with a variety of templates.

Dynamic Layouts: Resize and organize your display areas as per your requirement.

Create & Show

Create Impactful Shows: Easily arrange slides and layouts for lyrics, presentations, events, and more, ensuring a smooth flow in your presentations.

Dynamic Media Integration: Effortlessly drag images and videos into your slides as backgrounds enhancing the visual appeal of your presentations.

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Scripture & Lyric Integration

Scripture Integration: Easily look up passages and turn them into slides with one click.

Lyric Integration: It's no longer necessary to manually enter the lyrics to all the songs. Just enter the title and click search and be amazed as the slides are automatically created for you.

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Plays Well With Others

Import: Import Presentations from PowerPoint, ProPresenter, EasyWorship, OpenSong, and other platforms.

Export: You're not locked in and can export your content in multiple formats at any time.

Cloud Sync: Allow multiple people within your church to work on presentations from different computers with cloud sync.

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How FreeShow Compares

Unlike other presentation software providers, we are not a business. We are a non-profit that exists solely to serve churches. Our biggest difference is in the name. FreeShow is and always will be free. This is possible due to the generous support of donors. Learn more. That isn't the only way FreeShow stands above the alternatives. It is also a very feature-rich application. Here is how we stack up.

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15 Best Presentation Software for 2021

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By Bilyana Nikolaeva

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3 years ago

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The Best Presentation Software for 2021

On average a presentation takes up to 20 minutes and experts say we make an impression within the first 30 seconds. That is why it’s important to “dress” our great product/idea with an equally exciting design. Most often, presentations are cooked up by non-designers, which creates a specific need – for powerful presentation software, which can help communicate a message beautifully, effectively, and to suit any user’s skill level. We hand-picked 15 of the best presentation software for 2021 , which will help you create presentations online, share them, while shining in your best light. In the meanwhile, check out some useful ideas tips to spice up your presentations .

A web-based presentation tool, which means you can access your presentations wherever you are, with an internet connection. It is known for its animations, cartoons, and infographics, which help the user to create more interactive presentations and explainer-style videos.

Example by Focusky

Best Features:  Very interactive; you can create a unique to your story by combining different “frames” (slides); create your own animations within the presentation Price:  Free, but heavily subscription-based Learning curve:  Very intuitive, nicely organized by categories, but it would require some time to learn the animation controls Available for:  Online Perfect for: Marketing and education

To summarize, this presentation tool is best for marketers and education, where the creator can get the most out of the cool animation and cartoons available. In the last years, there is an increased interest in Powtoon and RenderForest and we expect that more and more people will use them in 2021. No surprise – if you look at our article about Graphic Design Trends in 2022 , everything is moving towards animation, cool 3D-s, cartoons, and illustrations – and these are all things that this software can offer for your presentation.

Prezi is an online presentation software, which resembles a mind map. In comparison, PowerPoint offers a linear way of presenting, whereas Prezi allows you to better show relationships between different elements of your presentation, show details, zoom in and zoom out and show an overall view of your topic. Compared to PowerPoint is more interactive, but with fewer functionalities and a choice of templates.

Example by PreziBase

Best Features:  Interactive presentations and interesting transitions, zoom in/out details Price:  The very basic features are free, but most of the interesting ones are paid, starting from $3/month and reaching up to $59/month. They offer a free trial. Learning curve:  it requires learning and going through a lot of menus and functionalities, similar to PowerPoint Available for:  Online / Limited use for iOS and Android (only viewing, not creating and editing) Perfect for: teachers, businesses, more experienced designers, and specific presentations needs, but not recommended for newbies

Prezi is best in showing relationships between different parts of your presentations. There are some challenges in editing, and viewing across devices and its best features are paid for. We recommend it for quick, mind-map-like presentations without the need for ultra-special design.

3. RenderForest Presentation Maker

RenderForest is an online presentation tool, which is famous for its explainer style and whiteboard animations. The presentation templates often offer various motion/video backgrounds, which helps to grab your audience’s attention. Currently, the company is working on releasing its Graphic Design Software, which will allow users to create printables and beautiful designs for social media. This shows that RenderForest’s team knows the market well and does its best to cater to its needs!

top open source presentation software

Example by Renderforest

Best Features:  Video holders with text on shapes, cool transitions Price:  There is a free version, the paid ones start at $20.34 per user/month Learning curve:  Relatively easy to use, the simple interface helps the user Available for:  Online / iOS / Android Perfect for:  Education and business

Although not one of the cheapest solutions, it allows you to create engaging and interactive presentations with lots of cool animations. That makes RenderForest a great choice for more educational and marketing explainer-type videos/presentations.

4. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is a very interesting online presentation software. It allows your audience to engage with your presentation in real-time and you can create polls, ask questions, which are then displayed to your presentation. The answers from the audience remain anonymous so people are even more encouraged to participate.

Example by Mentimeter

Best Features:  Launch live, interactive polls, surveys, quizzes and create things like word clouds in real-time Price:  It has a free version, but the paid plans offer most of the attractive features – the basic plan costs $9.99 per user/month and the more advanced plan is $24.99 per user/month Learning curve:  Easy to use; might need to explain to a less tech-savvy audience how to connect to your presentation Available for:  Online / Android / iOS Perfect for:  Educators, speakers, business and competitions

An excellent choice for educators, speakers, and businesses who want to engage the audience in real-time and display the results immediately. Clean, simple designs, that help you focus on the content.

5. Libre Office Impress

Libre Office is free presentation software, an open-source alternative to PowerPoint. As you can expect from a free product, it offers only the main features of its “big brother”, but it’s a good solution for people used to Microsoft’s productivity suite. The interface is very similar to PowerPoint, which again makes it comfortable to use for a certain audience. Users who need collaboration on presentations, clean interface, and more creative design solutions should steer away from this free presentation software because it will simply not cover their needs.

top open source presentation software

Example by Theodoros Bousios

Best Features:  Free, compatible with older versions (Windows XP for example) Price:  Free Learning curve:  It will take some time to go through all the options and to get familiar with the interface; Available for:  Windows / macOS / Linux / Android / iOS. Perfect for:  people who want to use a free product and people with older operation systems

To summarize, Libre is free, compatible with older versions, it can cover your basic needs for a presentation, but the options are too many and available templates too little.

6. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is also an online presentation software, which has a very friendly user interface and great collaboration features. There are many functionalities, which help you create a beautiful design, but require some time and design knowledge to get it right. The premade templates are limited and this presentation software needs an internet connection to be able to edit and present.

top open source presentation software

Image by Zoho

Best Features:  Live broadcasting a presentation with live chat and commenting Price:  Zoho Show is free for personal use. For business users, Zoho Show is included in the Zoho Docs enterprise pricing packages – €5 or €8 per user/month Learning curve: Available for:  Online / Android / iOS Perfect for:  non-profits, start-ups, personal use, teachers

To summarize, Zoho offers great collaboration features, but you need a connection to edit and present. It is suitable for quick, non-pretentious presentations, where you need some kind of collaboration.

7. ClearSlide Presenter

ClearSlide is a sales engagement platform, including an online presentation tool. Another online tool – SlideRocket, was acquired by ClearSlide and one of the differences is that ClearSlide is more costly and targeted at larger businesses. It’s a great platform for very specific needs – collaborating between sales and marketing teams, to achieve the company’s goals. It’s clear even by the interface:

top open source presentation software

Image by ClearSlide

Best Features: Analytics for costumers’ engagement, video conferencing, screen sharing Price:  They offer a free trial and you can see more about the payment plans here. Learning curve:  Clear and simple interface, but it requires some time to get used to the tools Available for:  Online Perfect for: Sales/business, managers (for coaching); not suitable for newbies, teachers, students

To summarize, ClearSide is perfect for presenting sales pitch , graphics, collaborate in larger teams. It is somehow restrictive for a non-designer because the templates are specific.

8. Piktochart

Piktochart allows you to make infographics, presentations, and printables quickly. Primarily known for its easy customizable infographics, Piktochart also has simple presentation templates and the company is constantly trying to update its library.

Example by Piktochart Knowledge Base

Best Features:  Turning data-heavy content into simple visuals; nice transitions between slides Price:  There is a free version and a paid one, starting at $29 per user/month. They offer a free trial. Learning curve:  It requires time to get used to the options available and to navigate through Available for:  Online Perfect for:  Designers, teachers; it does not offer collaboration options, which might be needed by teams, students, etc.

Compared to other online presentation software is a bit costly and we could still ask a bit more from the presentation templates. We’d recommend it to someone who often uses infographics and wants to use a single platform to combine the infographics with a presentation. But why not check our free infographics as well?

Slides is online presentation software, initially aimed at developers and covering their presentation needs. Thus said, it does not offer offline editing, but you can present offline, after exporting your presentation.

Best Features:  It allows you to use your phone as a remote control; Live Present Mode allows you to control what your audience sees; drop in code, iframes, and SVGs with ease. Price:  Free, with paid plans starting at $7.00/month and $14-$18/month for pro and team packages. They offer a free trial. Learning curve:  friendly interface, but too many functions and options, which might overwhelm the average user and beginner Available for: Online Perfect for:  developers, designers, a little bit too specific for newbies

To summarize, it’s a very cool tool, giving you complete design freedom, but that is also why we do not recommend it to teachers, non-designers, or marketers. Developers and design gurus will love it.

Canva is a web-based solution that started with a mission – to make beautiful designed content available to everyone. The whole platform is organized so that a person without any prior design knowledge can easily create graphs, images, and presentations to impress. Although it is not the best tool for data visualization, it scores high in any other category. Needless to say, it has become a popular choice amongst non-designers.

Image by Iconfinder

Best Features:  Plenty of beautiful templates to choose from and Canva school has plenty of tutorials and tips for free. It offers more free functionalities compared to other competitors. Price:  Free, the offer different subscription plans, starting at $9.95 per user/month Learning curve:  Very easy to use, most of the actions can be performed by drag-and-drop Available for:  Online / iOS / Android Perfect for:  newbies, marketers (who need a unified look across all their social media), non-profits, and teachers

Canva is becoming one of the most popular tools amongst non-designers for creating beautiful unified content. You can create entire presentations, flyers, and other materials with a single drag and drop.

11. Slidebean

Slidebean is the go-to online presentation software for last-minute projects, that look original and professional. Slidebean offers clean and easy-to-use templates and keeps track of your audience’s engagement.

Source Slidebean

Best Features:  It allows you to arrange your content with the help of AI, which saves time creating a beautiful layout. You just pick a template, upload content, and let the AI offer you a nice layout. Premade animations, effects, and alignments are automatically applied to your content and create a cohesive look. Price:  Free, paid versions starting from $8/month Learning curve:  very easy to use since everything is made to fit the premade templates Available for:  Windows / Mac / Android / iOS Perfect for:  financial, academic, pitch, marketing, sales; everything quick with a clear structure

To summarize, if you are in a hurry, Slidebean will offer several layouts for your slides and speed up the process of creation. The platform targets primarily sales, marketing, and financial fields, and the available templates reflect that.

12. Google Slides

Google Slides is part of the G Suite business application. Its popularity has increased in the last years since it’s a web-based platform, allowing you to store, edit, and share your presentation, without the need of installing presentation software on your computer. All you need is a Google account and you are good to go.

Image by G Suite Updates blog

Best Features:  It’s free for personal use, and offers great paid features for business – for example, seamless collaboration and commenting on a presentation, converting other presentations to Google Slides. Some other great features are the wide variety of fonts available (GoogleFonts, not need installing), easy embedding, plus it’s super intuitive and easy to use! Price:   It’s free for individual use. For business use, the price starts at $5/user/month and plans of $10 and $25/user/month, for unlimited cloud storage and extra features Learning curve:  Simple interface, but it will require some time to pick up. Similar to PowerPoint, only a bit lighter. Available for:  Windows / Mac / Online Perfect for:  businesses, freelancers, who need a user-friendly app with elementary features; great for collaborating teams, not so perfect for complex designs and tools, required by big enterprises

Perfect for personal use, well synchronized across different devices, similar to PowerPoint. Maybe you are a teacher and you like GoogleSlides because it is free and easy to use? Well, we’ve gathered some awesome FREE GoogleSlides and PowerPoint templates , specially made for education needs.

If you need something along the lines of PowerPoint but need the option for collaboration – a paid plan for GoogleSlides is your go-to choice.

13. Keynote

Keynote is an Apple product, very similar to Google Slides. All you need to do is create an iCloud account (similar to a Google account) and start using Keynote from there. Running Keynote on Windows also requires an internet connection and a modern browser. The latest version can also import and export PowerPoint formats if needed. All this sends Keynote higher in the list regarding the accessibility and shareability of this presentation software.

top open source presentation software

Image by Envato tuts+

Best Features:  Simplicity of design, great drag and drop functions, polished transitions and animations, easy image editing/cropping; works great with multimedia; design templates with better aesthetic than an average slide deck; Price:  Free for macOS and iOS Learning curve:  Pretty easy to use for Mac users, a bit of learning curve for users, having experience with other software. Available for:  Mac / Windows / Online Perfect for:  businesses, marketers, people with not much of a design experience

Bottom line, if you are a Mac user, you love the sleek design and you are looking for cool aesthetics – Keynote is simple to use and free, why not use it?

14. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a web and mobile-based media creation application, which helps you create social graphics, short videos, and web pages. What is immediately noticeable is the clean, crisp, simple, and modern designs, which focus you on the content. If you are looking for a funky, ornate design – Adobe Spark is not the right pick for you.

Example by Cikeys

Best Features:  Beautiful templates, user-friendly interface, step-by-step creation, you can add audio to your slides (narrating) Price:  There is a free version, the paid on starts at $9.79. The best templates, as with the competitors, are paid. They do not offer a free trial. Learning curve:  Easy to use Available for:  Online / iOS / Android Perfect for:  quick presentations, teachers, basic presentations without jamming them with too much cool stuff.

Adobe Spark eliminates the cluster of design options and leads you step-by-step in creating elegant, simple presentations. Ideal for basic presentations, not the best for sales and marketing.

15. PowerPoint

PowerPoint certainly is a “classic” – it’s has been the most popular tool for creating presentations so far. What first started as a component of the Microsoft Office suite, now has improved shareability and accessibility. It can be used on the web (as part of Office on the web), works with Android, and iOS, and there is a Mobile app, as well as presentation software for mac.

Example by Abris DC

Best Features:  Many people are familiar with the software, a wide variety of templates; improved accessibility across platforms; extensive tools and options Price: If you want to enjoy the full features of PowerPoint, you’ll need to subscribe to Microsoft 365 – they have payment plans for personal or business use. The price for personal use starts at $5.99/month or $59.99/year, and business plans start at $12.50 per user/month with an annual commitment. You can find more information here . The mobile applications are completely free to use, of course with some limitations. You can compare the available features across different platforms  here. Learning curve: Due to the variety of options and the complexity of the menus, it might take some time to master all of its features. Something that could take a lot of time is editing the text, arranging the visuals, and picking the right transitions – overall, is time-consuming. Still, the interface remained easy to navigate over time and if you trust your design sense, you can achieve satisfying results. Available for: Windows / Mac / Online Perfect for: business, medical, accounting and students; creating concise presentations; but not so suitable for teachers, educators, start-ups and marketers who want to create more interactive and story-based presentations.

To this date, PowerPoint is keeping the lead as the most popular tool for creating presentations. Some of the downsides are that sometimes it can be time-consuming to come up with a good design and PP doesn’t offer collaboration tools and compared to other platforms. But we have a solution for at least one of your problems – we’ve selected 31 Modern PowerPoint templates to set the right tone for your presentation. 

We made a quick summary for you…

Ok, not that we’ve looked at the 15 best presentation software for 2021, we decided to go one step further and compare them by price and popularity. Let’s have a look first at the new-comers:

top open source presentation software

As you can see, the leaders from the uprising platforms are Canva and Mentimeter, with relatively low prices and with huge success amongst users . Powtoon, Piktochart, and Renderforest are a bit costly , but they are popular since they offer a lot of animation and interactive elements. Hey, but maybe some of the other tools are right for you? We encourage you to go on their websites, contact their support team, and see what they have to offer.

Then, let’s see how the veterans are ranking:

top open source presentation software

It’s no surprise that PowerPoint and Google Slides are at the top – people are used to their products, have familiar interfaces, and offer a lot of functionalities at a good price. Although, for quick, unpretentious results, their competitors are a very attractive solution.

Final words

We can conclude that there are many useful tools to help you create beautiful presentations. Some of them are well-known and have been here for a while, while others are uprising… No matter the case, we notice a trend for presentation tools catering not only to the designers’ needs but also to the newbies, marketers, and teachers. That way, enabling everyone to create stunning presentations in no time and share them easily.

We hope this presentation software list shed some light on different options out there and that we helped you evaluate quickly what would work for your situation best.

You may also be interested in these related articles:

  • 12 PowerPoint Presentation Tips To Dramatically Boost Your Efficiency
  • 35 Free Google Slides Infographic Templates to Grab Now
  • 23 Online Collaboration Tools for Your Remote Team

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Bilyana is an inspiring content writer and illustrator at GraphicMama with years of experience in art and design. When she’s not busy writing for the blog, you will usually see her working hard on new illustrations and graphic resources.

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The OfficeSuite Insider

The Best Presentation Software to get in 2024

  • March 28, 2024

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Some of the best presentation software to get in 2024 includes Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, OfficeSuite Slides, Google Slides, and LibreOffice Impress. But, there are plenty of other choices out there, but knowing which one to go for can be difficult.

Well, we know a thing or two about building awesome decks, so join us as we take a look at the best presentation software you can get in 2024, what you should look for when making your choice, and what you may want to avoid.

Contents Toggle 1. What to look for in the best presentation software 2. The best presentation software in 2024 OfficeSuite Microsoft PowerPoint Apple Keynote Google Slides WPS Office Canva Prezi Beautiful.ai Zoho Show Polaris Office LibreOffice Impress Haiku Deck 3. Other considerations for presentation software

1. what to look for in the best presentation software.

Good presentation software should empower you to create clear, engaging, and impactful presentations, and not get in the way. When doing your research, here are some things you’ll want to keep in mind when narrowing down your final choice.

Is it intuitive? There’s a lot that goes into making a presentation shine, so if the interface makes it hard to find the features you want, the overall time you spend crafting your deck may be too munch. Instead, it’s better that you find something that’s easy to use, which drag-and-drop functionality, templates, and easy image integration.

Does it have many options? A good presentation uses a decent balance of text, colors, and images, so that when it comes to the big moment, you’ll be able to keep the attention of your audience. This is where templates come in handy, as that part will be done for you, so when choosing your solution, you’ll want to make sure you have the option.

Can you add animations? By incorporating cool transitions and animations, you can enhance the visual impact of your presentation. Of course, you’ll need to be careful about not over-using them, but it’s always good to have the option.

Is it easy to share and collaborate ? In most cases, a few people will be contributing to the building of a presentation at once, so the best presentation software choices will make sure that working together on a deck is as easy as possible, with cloud uploads, comments, and other methods.

Are there mobile versions? As above, you’ll want your presentation software to work with as many people as possible, and this includes mobile versions. It’s really handy to be able to work on your deck when on the go, even if it’s on an Android or iOS-based smartphone. And, this of course goes for collaborating with other contributors as well.

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Does it have delivery tools? : Nailing your presentation also takes some preparation in terms of how you actually talk through your slides. For that reason, you’ll really want your presentation software to have features that let you rehearse your timings, and give you a presenter view as well.

Can you export to PDF? Many people like to share their presentations after the actual meeting is complete, so that clients and colleagues can refer back to the information inside. That’s why its very useful to have the option to convert to PDF, which safeguards the formatting for whoever wants to open it.

I s it compatible with other formats? With so many presentation software suites out there, it’s a good idea to make sure that anyone you work with will be able to open and edit the deck. So, when you choose your solution, you’ll want it to be highly compatible with other file formats and platforms to make sure that anyone who needs to work on it, can.

Is it well supported? The best presentation software options are the ones that receive regular updates, both for quality of life, and in terms of features. When looking at possible solutions, take a look at when it was last updated, and whether or not their is a good support team to talk to if needed.

2. The best presentation software in 2024

Alright, so we’ve talked about what you might be looking for. Here are the best options, which we want to say are not ranked by order.

OfficeSuite

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OfficeSuite Slides is currently one of the best presentation software options on the market, as it offers a high level of compatibility, and robust support. As a direct competitor to global favorites such as Microsoft Powerpoint, it offers users a powerful presentation software that lets them create decks that suit their needs.

Available on all major platforms, and with simple cross-device working, it makes working with other people super easy, and, with both free and premium versions available, its an affordable option that easily fits in to a range of needs and budgets. And, it comes in a 5-in-1 office pack that also includes Documents , Sheets , Documents , Mail , and PDF .

  • Cross-platform compatibility : OfficeSuite is available on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, allowing you to create and edit presentations on various devices. It also allows the exporting of presentations to PDF format, ensuring wider compatibility and offline accessibility.
  • Works with many file formats – Users with OfficeSuite slides won’t have to worry about opening different file formats, or sharing their work to those using other presentation software products.
  • It’s easy to use: For users familiar with Microsoft Office, OfficeSuite Slides offers a similar interface, easing the learning curve.
  • Strong feature set: The free plan includes essential features for creating presentations, such as text editing, pre-designed templates, animation tools, and multimedia integration.
  • Ongoing support: OfficeSuite Slides has an active team working behind it, and regularly has feature updates throughout the year.

Considerations

  • Free version has fewer features : While the free version is suitable for many use cases, anyone needing more functionality will need to upgrade to the Premium version, which is more affordable than many competitors.
  • Potential for ads : To help support the development of OfficeSuite Slides, users may be served advertisements within the software.

Microsoft PowerPoint

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The longstanding king of presentation software, PowerPoint offers a comprehensive feature set, robust functionality, and seamless integration with other Microsoft Office products. It’s ideal for users who need advanced customization options and familiarity with a widely used platform. However, getting a subscription isn’t as affordable as comparable products.

  • Extensive compatibility: PowerPoint presentations can be viewed on most devices with minimal formatting issues.
  • Feature rich: PowerPoint offers a wide range of tools for creating presentations, from basic slides to complex data visualizations and animations.
  • User-friendly: The interface is relatively intuitive, and numerous tutorials are available to help beginners get started.
  • Integration with other Microsoft products: PowerPoint seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft Office products, allowing for easy data transfer and workflow.
  • Customization options: Pre-designed templates provide a starting point, and extensive customization options allow for personalized presentations.
  • Cost : PowerPoint is part of the paid Microsoft Office suite, with a subscription-based payment model.
  • Learning curve : While user-friendly, the extensive features can be overwhelming for users creating simple presentations.
  • Template dependence : Overreliance on pre-designed templates can lead to generic presentations.
  • File size: complex presentations with multimedia elements can become large files.

Apple Keynote

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The most popular presentation software users on Mac, Keynote boasts a user-friendly interface, stunning design templates, and powerful animation tools. It excels at creating visually captivating presentations and integrates smoothly with other Apple products, but may struggle when seeking compatibility with other platforms or file types.

  • Strong designs: Keynote excels at creating visually captivating presentations with beautiful pre-designed templates and intuitive design tools.
  • Mac-friendly: Integrates seamlessly with other Apple products for a smooth workflow for Mac users.
  • Powerful animations: Offers impressive animation tools to create dynamic and engaging presentations.
  • Free for Apple users: Comes pre-installed on Mac computers, making it a cost-effective option for Apple users.
  • Limited platform: Only available on Mac computers, restricting use for non-Apple users.
  • Export quirks: Exporting presentations to formats like PowerPoint can sometimes lead to formatting or animation issues.
  • Storage considerations: Presentations with complex animations and multimedia elements can take up significant storage space on your Mac.

Google Slides

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Part of Google Workspace, Slides offers a user-friendly interface, real-time collaboration features, and cloud storage for easy access. It’s a great option for individuals and teams who value collaboration and accessibility while keeping their costs down. But, because it’s an online platform, an Internet connection will be needed to save your work and collaborate.

  • Free and accessible: Part of the free Google Workspace suite, readily available to anyone with a Google account.
  • Strong collaboration: Real-time co-editing allows multiple users to work on a presentation simultaneously, making teamwork effortless.
  • Cloud-based convenience: Users can save and store their presentations online, accessing them from any device with an internet connection.
  • Easy to Learn: Straightforward interface makes it perfect for beginners and non-designers.
  • Limited offline functionality: While some features, such as editing works offline, full functionality need you to be connected to the Internet.
  • Fewer design options: Offers a smaller selection of pre-designed templates and customization options compared to some competitors.
  • Formatting concerns: Importing presentations from other software might lead to formatting issues.
  • Security Considerations: Data security concerns for some users who might prefer presentations stored locally.

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This free and paid software offers a familiar interface similar to PowerPoint, making it easy to learn for those already comfortable with Microsoft products. It includes a good range of templates, transitions, and animation tools, along with cloud storage and collaboration features (in the paid version).

While it might not have the same level of power as industry leaders, it’s a solid and cost-effective option for basic to moderate presentation needs.

  • Free and familiar: Offers a free plan with a user interface similar to PowerPoint, making it easy to learn for those already comfortable with Microsoft products.
  • Good range of features: Includes a good selection of pre-designed templates, transitions, and animation tools for creating engaging presentations.
  • Cost-effective: Paid versions offer additional features and cloud storage at a more affordable price compared to Microsoft Office.
  • Collaboration capabilities (Paid): Paid plans unlock real-time co-editing features, allowing multiple users to work on a presentation simultaneously.
  • Limited features compared to leaders: While offering essential features, it might lack the advanced functionalities for data visualization, animation customization, or integrations found in industry leaders like PowerPoint.
  • Limited free plan storage: The free plan offers limited cloud storage space, which might be insufficient for extensive presentations.
  • Focus on Windows: Primarily designed for Windows users, the mobile app and web interface might have fewer features compared to the desktop version.

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A popular design platform, Canva also offers a surprisingly robust presentation maker. It excels in creating visually appealing presentations with its vast library of templates and design elements, which are easy to use. There is a free plan that offers a good but somewhat limited range of options, with the choice to unlock more with the paid plan.

  • Design-focused: Canva creates visually appealing presentations with a vast library of templates, graphics, and design elements.
  • Free and freemium: Offers a free plan with a good range of features, with paid plans unlocking even more options.
  • User-friendly: Intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes building slides quick and easy, even for design beginners.
  • Multi-Purpose platform : Not just for presentations, Canva can also be used to create social media graphics, posters, and more.
  • Limited storage in free version : The free tier of Google Workspace offers limited storage space, which can be a constraint for users with extensive documents or multimedia files. Upgrading to a paid plan unlocks increased storage capacity.
  • Subscription model : Unlike some free and open-source alternatives, Google Workspace requires a paid subscription for access to its full feature set.
  • Potential reliance on being online : While Google Workspace offers some offline functionality, core features and real-time collaboration require a stable internet connection.

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Known for its non-linear canvas, Prezi lets you zoom in and out of different sections of your presentation, creating a more conversational flow for a more unique approach. It’s a good choice for decks that don’t require a strictly linear structure, but may be a little unconventional for more formal presentations.

Strengths :

  • Non-linear storytelling: Offers a unique, non-linear canvas, allowing you to zoom in and out of different sections, which makes your presentation more engaging and creative.
  • Visually engaging: Prezi presentations can be visually dynamic and interesting, ideal for capturing attention with an unconventional approach.
  • Easy to learn: The basic functionality of adding content and zooming is relatively straightforward.
  • Collaboration features: Offers basic co-editing functionalities for teamwork on presentations.

Considerations:

  • Not great for complex presentations: While simple presentations are easy, structuring complex ideas with the non-linear format can require more effort.
  • Navigation challenges: If not carefully designed, complex Prezi presentations might be confusing for viewers to navigate.
  • Limited customization: Offers less customization compared to some competitors in terms of fonts, layouts, and animation styles.
  • Limited offline access: Full functionality and offline access require a paid subscription.

Beautiful.ai

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This AI-powered platform helps users with suggestions for design elements, layouts, and content based on your topic. It’s a great option for those who want a streamlined design process and a visually polished presentation, but as impressive as the technology is, further development is needed to make it even better.

  • AI-powered design: Beautiful.ai utilizes artificial intelligence to suggest layouts, content, and design elements based on your topic, streamlining the design process and saving time.
  • Polished results: Users can expect professional-looking presentations with a focus on modern aesthetics.
  • Easy to use: The clean interface and intuitive features makes using the software easy, even for those with little deck building experience.
  • Cloud-based working : Users can save and store their work online, and access it from any device with an Internet connection.
  • Limited customization: While AI suggestions are helpful, the level of customization for layouts, animations, and brand elements might be limited compared to some competitors.
  • Over-reliance on AI: The suggestions can be repetitive, and some users might prefer more creative control over the design.
  • Subscription model: Beautiful.ai requires a paid subscription to access all features and export options.
  • Focus on simplicity: May not be ideal for highly complex presentations requiring extensive data visualization or intricate animations.

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A user-friendly and free presentation tool from Zoho, Show offers a good balance of features and ease of use. It’s a solid option for individual users or small teams who need a basic but functional presentation tool.

  • Free and user-friendly: Zoho Show offers a free plan with a good range of features and a clean interface that’s easy to learn and navigate.
  • Easy teamwork: Real-time co-editing capabilities allow multiple users to work on a presentation simultaneously, allowing them to fine-tune and edit as a group.
  • Cloud storage: Saves and stores presentations online, accessible from any device with an internet connection.
  • Decent integration: Integrates with other Zoho applications for a streamlined workflow, as long as you use the Zoho ecosystem.
  • Design options: Provides a selection of pre-designed templates and customization options for fonts, colors, and layouts.
  • Fewer features: Compared to industry leaders like PowerPoint, Zoho Show might lack some advanced features in animation, data visualization, or design customization.
  • Potential for export issues: While exports are supported in various formats, occasional formatting issues might arise when exporting complex presentations.
  • Limited free plan: The free plan restricts storage space and collaboration features, requiring paid upgrades for larger teams or extensive projects.
  • Mobile limitations: While offering a mobile app, the web interface might be the primary focus for creating presentations.

Polaris Office

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This free and paid mobile-first presentation software is a great choice for those who frequently create and edit decks on the go. It offers a user-friendly interface, basic design tools, and cloud storage with real-time co-editing capabilities. While the free version has limitations, the paid version provides more features and can be a good option for individuals or small teams who need a mobile-centric presentation solution.

  • Mobile-first focus: Polaris excels at creating and editing presentations on the go with its user-friendly mobile app.
  • Free and accessible: Offers a free plan with basic features, making it a good option for casual users or those who need to create presentations on their mobile devices.
  • Real-time collaboration: The free plan includes basic co-editing features, allowing multiple users to work on a presentation simultaneously, even on mobile devices.
  • Cloud storage and syncing: Saves and stores presentations in the cloud, ensuring accessibility across devices and facilitating collaboration.

Considerations :

  • Limited features: Designed primarily for mobile use, Polaris Presentation lacks the advanced features for complex presentations found in desktop software.
  • Limited offline functionality: While some features can be used offline, full functionality requires an internet connection for collaboration and cloud storage.
  • Focus on simplicity: Might not be ideal for highly technical presentations requiring intricate details, complex data charts, or advanced customization.
  • Mobile-centric interface: The web interface might have fewer features compared to the mobile app, prioritizing mobile creation and editing.

LibreOffice Impress

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Part of the free and open-source LibreOffice suite, Impress offers a feature set comparable to OpenOffice and can be a good option for those who prioritize free and open-source software. It has a learning curve but provides a wide range of customization options and can be a powerful tool for experienced users.

  • Free and open-source: LibreOffice Impress is completely free to use and modify, making it a budget-friendly and customizable option.
  • Good set of features: Despite being free, Impress offers a good range of features for creating presentations, including text editing, animations, transitions, and basic data visualization tools.
  • Cross-platform compatibility: LibreOffice runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems, making it a versatile option for users with any operating system.
  • Large user community: Being an open-source project, LibreOffice has a large and active user community offering online support and tutorials.
  • Steeper learning curve: Compared to user-friendly options, Impress has a steeper learning curve with a less intuitive interface.
  • Limited design options: While customizable, Impress might lack the vast selection of pre-designed templates and design elements found in some competitors.
  • Potential compatibility issues: Presentations created in Impress might not translate perfectly to other presentation software, requiring some formatting adjustments when sharing.
  • Less frequent feature updates: Being open-source, updates might not be as frequent as with commercially developed software.

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Haiku Deck is a web-based presentation tool that allows users to create presentations with a focus on visual design and simplicity. It offers a library of royalty-free images and encourages the use of concise text. This focus on visuals and brevity may help presentations resonate with audiences and leave a lasting impression.

  • Visual focus: Haiku Deck offers a library of high-quality images, allowing users to create presentations with a strong visual component.
  • Ease of learning: Haiku Deck’s straightforward interface makes it suitable for beginners to create presentations.
  • Free features: Haiku Deck provides core functionalities through its web-based platform, catering to budget-conscious users.
  • Focus on brevity: The platform promotes conciseness, potentially helping users stay focused on key messages and audience engagement.
  • Limited offline use: While some features are available offline, full functionality requires an internet connection.
  • Image focus: Haiku Deck might not be ideal for presentations that heavily rely on detailed charts, graphs, or intricate data visualization elements.
  • Collaboration features: The basic plan offers limited functionalities for collaboration compared to cloud-based presentation software.
  • Editing existing decks: Haiku Deck excels at creating new presentations from scratch, but editing existing presentations created in other software might be less efficient.

3. Other considerations for presentation software

Before starting your research, you’ll need to understand what it is you’re looking for exactly, and what you need.

Complexity of your presentations:

Basic slides: If your presentation relies on text, bullet points, and simple visuals, free presentation software like Google Slides, OfficeSuite, or Microsoft PowerPoint (in presentation mode) will do the job.

Advanced design: Presentations with complex data visualizations, animations, or custom layouts could need software with advanced design features. Popular options include Adobe InDesign, Keynote, or premium versions of OfficeSuite, or PowerPoint..

Collaboration needs:

Solo Project:  If you’re working alone, most presentation software offers basic collaboration features like saving to the cloud.

Teamwork: If you’re collaborating with a team, consider software with commenting, version control, and easy sharing. and version control.

Free options: Many free presentation software options exist, offering basic functionalities, including OfficeSuite, WPS, OpenOffice, Google Slides, and more.

Paid software: Paid presentation software offers a wider range of advanced features, customization options, so if you can afford it, premium versions of basic packages can make your working even easier.

Presentation style:

Linear presentation: Most presentation software caters to a traditional linear flow, where slides progress one after another.

Non-linear format: Some software allows for creating interactive or non-linear presentations. Consider tools like Prezi or Nearpod if you want viewers to explore the content at their own pace.

top open source presentation software

4. Summing up

There are plenty of great options above, and more than worthy of making our list for the best presentation software in 2024. Of course, what you go for ultimately depends on your needs and budget, but with a healthy mix of free and paid versions in the above, you’re sure to find the right solutions to make your decks fantastic.

Once you’ve picked your software, it’ll be time to put together your presentations. We recommend reading our articles on how to do master slides , and presentation do’s and dont’s to give you even more of an edge. Good luck!

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Apache OpenOffice 4.1.7 released

21 September 2019: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.7 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new bugfixes, improvements and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.6 released

18 November 2018: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.6 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new bugfixes, improvements and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.5 released

30 December 2017: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.5 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new bugfixes, improvements and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.4 released

19 October 2017: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.4 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new bugfixes, improvements and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.3 released

12 October 2016: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.3 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new bugfixes, improvements and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2 released

28 October 2015: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.2 . In the Release Notes you can read about all bugfixes, improvements and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Udine moves to OpenOffice, will save 360,000 Euro

16 September 2014: The City of Udine, in Italy, announced a process that will lead to the installation of OpenOffice on 900 municipal desktops, saving the city 360,000 Euro. ZDNet's Raffaele Mastrolonardo has the details .

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.1 released

21 August 2014: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.1 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new features, functions and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.0 released

29 April 2014: The Apache OpenOffice project announces the official release of version 4.1.0 . In the Release Notes you can read about all new features, functions and languages. Don't miss to download the new release and find out yourself.

100 Million downloads

17 April 2014: The Apache OpenOffice project is proud to tell you that our software was downloaded over 100 million times . Join us in celebrating this big achievement!

Italian region adopts OpenOffice, saves 2 Million Euro

10 October 2013: The Italian administrative region of Emilia-Romagna announced plans to move to OpenOffice, saving 2 million euro .

Volunteers, not Amateurs

8 January 2013: Apache OpenOffice is developed 100% by volunteers. Apache does not pay for developers, for translators, for QA, for marketing, for UI, for support, etc. Of course, we're happy to accept donations to the Apache Software Foundation , to keep our servers runnings and for similar overhead expenses. But our products are developed entirely by volunteers.

Some users are initially worried by this statement: How can software for free, developed by volunteers, be any good? Read on for an answer...

Apache Software Foundation

Copyright & License | Privacy | Contact Us | Donate | Thanks

Apache, OpenOffice, OpenOffice.org and the seagull logo are registered trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation. The Apache feather logo is a trademark of The Apache Software Foundation. Other names appearing on the site may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides

5 Best Microsoft Word Alternatives for Linux in 2024

For those users who have recently switched to Linux due to privacy concerns or for some other reasons, it might be difficult to replace their favourite apps that don’t natively run on the Linux operating system.

Finding a decent alternative to a popular program can turn into a challenge, and not everyone is ready to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what can be as effective as the app they use on Windows or macOS.

One of the striking examples is Microsoft Office . This office suite is very popular among Windows users, and its incompatibility with Linux distros is not a problem.

There are some really powerful programs that allow Linux users to work on office files, such as spreadsheets and presentations .

When it comes to text documents, there are also a bunch of alternative solutions for Linux that are capable of creating and editing docs as effectively as Microsoft Word. Let’s take a look at the most decent options that you can install and run on your favourite distro .

Open-Source Microsoft Word Alternatives

Our selection starts with some open-source word processors which can be a good choice for Linux users seeking more privacy and security.

1. ONLYOFFICE Document Editor

The ONLYOFFICE Document Editor is part of the ONLYOFFICE office suite that offers editing tools for online and offline work on text docs, sheets, slides, PDFs, and digital forms .

Its native compatibility with DOCX files makes it a great Microsoft Word alternative for Linux users. The editor deals with other popular formats with ease, so editing DOC, ODT, TXT and even HTML files is not an issue as well.

The ONLYOFFICE editor has a tabbed interface that feels modern and looks a bit similar to the Microsoft Word interface. This means that ex-Microsoft Office users will find it easy to adapt to this application and use its editing functionality.

ONLYOFFICE Document Editor

With a set of ONLYOFFICE plugins , Linux users can go beyond mere text editing. The corresponding plugins make it possible to insert and play YouTube videos, do translation tasks, communicate via Telegram, correct typos and even convert text into HTML code. There is also a plugin for ChatGPT that integrates the chatbot for automated text generation.

Using the ONLYOFFICE Document Editor you can protect confidential documents with passwords and sign them digitally . There is also an option for collaborative online work. You just need to connect the desktop app to a cloud-based platform.

The supported solutions are ONLYOFFICE DocSpace, ownCloud, Moodle , Nextcloud , Seafile , and kDrive. When connected, the ONLYOFFICE desktop suite allows you to edit files from your cloud storage and collaborate online with other people.

2. LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice Writer is an open-source word processor that is part of the LibreOffice suite , one of the most popular office software tools for Linux. It’s developed by a community of enthusiasts and professionals from all over the world and comes as the default office suite in many Linux distros .

LibreOffice Writer provides a range of features for creating and editing text documents. Its native format is ODT but DOCX files are supported too. Users can easily customize the appearance of their text documents created from scratch or based on pre-designed templates, such as resumes, letters, reports, and newsletters.

LibreOffice Writer

The application makes it possible to work with tables and charts, adjust margins, change page orientation, insert headers and footers, and customize page numbering. The built-in spell-check and grammar-check features help users correct errors so that their documents look flawless.

The program also has export and import options allowing users to work on DOCX, PDF, HTML, and other files. It also allows importing documents from other word processing software , like Microsoft Word.

3. Calligra Words

Calligra Suite , an open-source office suite developed by KDE, offers a set of tools and applications for various office files, vector graphics, and databases.

Linux users can use the suite on their desktop PCs, tablets, and smartphones. Its Microsoft Word alternative is called Calligra Words . It’s a text processor with desktop publishing features.

Like LibreOffice Writer, Calligra Words natively supports ODF documents as the default format. The program also opens other popular file extensions, for example, Microsoft Office Word files (both DOCX and DOC). Word files can be easily edited and saved as ODF.

Calligra Words

In general, Calligra Word has almost all the features an average Linux user needs. You can work with fonts and styles, create reference lists and bibliographies, change page layout, add and remove comments, and insert shapes. PDF exporting is also possible.

The app’s interface looks weird at first sight but turns out to be intuitive if you use Calligra Words for some time and get used to its interface elements.

Proprietary Microsoft Word Alternatives for Linux

If you don’t care much about your privacy and feel good when using proprietary software, take a look at the options below.

4. FreeOffice TextMaker

TextMaker is a word processor that belongs to the FreeOffice suite , a free version of the premium office suite developed by SoftMaker.

As a Microsoft Word alternative for Linux, this app is perfectly compatible with DOCX and DOC files and also supports OpenDocument files, and a bunch of other popular formats, such as RTF, HTML, and PDF. Some old Microsoft formats are supported as well, so if you happen to work with WordPerfect files, FreeOffice TextMaker won’t let you down.

FreeOffice TextMaker

TextMaker comes with a set of essential editing and formatting tools so that Linux users can create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations for any purpose.

However, some important features, such as macros, mail merge, and cross-references, are available only if you buy the premium version of the suite called SoftMaker Office.

For average users who don’t create professional documents with complex formatting and layout, the free version is more than enough for regular use.

TextMaker is a user-friendly app. When you launch it for the first time after installation, you will be offered to choose one of the available menu styles, from classic to modern.

For example, there is an option allowing you to switch between ribbons or classic menus. Also, the program comes with detailed guides and useful tooltips in the menu so you can easily learn how to use TextMaker effectively if you spend some time.

5. WPS Writer

WPS Office is another office suite for Linux that comes with its own alternatives to Microsoft Word , Excel , and PowerPoint . Its document editing tool, WPS Writer , has a modern user-friendly interface that will definitely look familiar to ex-Word users. The app provides excellent compatibility with DOCX and can open other file formats, like PDF, TXT, RTF and DOC.

Linux users can download and use WPS Writer for free, and the free version offers the majority of the most common editing and formatting features. Additionally, it provides a set of free templates for daily document processing tasks.

WPS Writer

If you need access to some premium features, such as OCR, you need to buy a premium subscription. With the subscription, you will benefit from additional functionality and tools but this is not required if you just create and edit simple text documents on your Linus desktop.

Apart from the maximum resemblance to the Word interface, another strength of WPS Writer is cloud integration with third-party services, which provides solid ground for cross-device synchronization and collaboration.

The only problem with all Word alternatives for Linux is that they can’t completely replace the full functionality of the Microsoft app. Some key features that you are used to seeing in Word might be missing in other office suites.

However, all the options above can definitely make a difference if you decide to abandon Word and opt for a more affordable document editing tool on Linux. They are all free so you won’t spend a single dime when figuring out what works best for you and your preferences as a PC user.

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1 thought on “5 Best Microsoft Word Alternatives for Linux in 2024”

“The only problem with all Word alternatives for Linux is that they can’t completely replace the full functionality of the Microsoft app.”

You have that backwards. The only problem with Word is that it is incompatible with Linux word processors.

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xz Backdoor CVE-2024-3094

xz Backdoor CVE-2024-3094

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Eclipse joins with industry groups to secure open source

Collaborative effort aims to establish common specifications for secure software development based on existing open source best practices..

Paul Krill

Editor at Large, InfoWorld |

solar eclipse sun ring shadow clods

The Eclipse Foundation announced that it is partnering with the Apache Software Foundation and other open source foundations to establish common specifications for secure software development based on existing open source best practices.

In an April 2 blog post , Eclipse said that the goal of the initiative was to meet the challenges of cybersecurity in the open source ecosystem and demonstrate cooperation with the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Participants include Apache , Eclipse , the Rust Foundation , the PHP Foundation , the Blender Foundation , the OpenSSL Software Foundation , and the Python Software Foundation .

The collaborative effort will be hosted at the Brussels-based Eclipse Foundation AISBL under the auspices of the Eclipse Foundation Specification Process and a new working group. Other code-hosting open source foundations and industry players are invited to join.

The starting point for the technical standardization effort will be current security policies and procedures of open source foundations and similar documents describing best practices. The governance of the working group will follow the Eclipse-led model but will be augmented by representation from the open source community. The deliverables will consist of one or more process specifications available under a liberal specification copyright license and a royalty-free patent license, Eclipse said.

Interested persons can receive updates on the effort by signing up for the Eclipse mailing list .

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Paul Krill is an editor at large at InfoWorld, whose coverage focuses on application development.

Copyright © 2024 IDG Communications, Inc.

top open source presentation software

Cumberland County Master Gardeners hosting environmentally conscious gardening presentation

by: Amber Charnoff

Posted: Apr 6, 2024 / 02:26 PM EDT

Updated: Apr 6, 2024 / 02:26 PM EDT

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) – The Penn State Master Gardeners of Cumberland County are hosting a new installment of the 2024 Gardening with Nature program series on Thursday, April 25.

The program, “Gardening with Nature: Make Your Property Watershed Friendly”, will be presented by Natalie Marioni, Penn State Extension Master Watershed Steward Program Coordinator.

The Master Gardeners noted the presentation will help you “determine where stormwater originates on your property, how it impacts local creeks and rivers and the proper practices you could adopt to reduce runoff, conserve water and support wildlife”.

The talk will take place in the Community Room at the Cleve J. Fredricksen Library in Camp Hill from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

The event is $5 and the deadline to register is Wednesday, April 24. Registration can be completed online or by calling Penn State Extension Registration Services at 1-877-345-0691. Walk-ins are available as space permits.

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    In this article, I'll cover 10 of the best open source, desktop-based, and web-based presentation software you'll find online. Best Open Source Presentation Tools. Open source software has come a long way. In the old days, open software couldn't compete with proprietary or closed software (Microsoft Office is one such example of closed ...

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    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.

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    Other interesting open source alternatives to Prezi are reveal.js, impress.js, Marp and Remark. Prezi alternatives are mainly Presentation Makers but may also be Slideshow Makers or Code Editors. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Prezi. Prezi. 306.

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    Vimdeck is an MIT-licensed tool that turns Markdown into a set of files, one per slide, which are then opened in Vim, and then sets up some keybindings for easy movement through your deck. You can give your slides a surprising amount of customization, including syntax-highlighted, a headline text font, and more.

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    So today we're examining the top 10 free alternative presentation software, ... LibreOffice Impress is an open-source alternative to PowerPoint. Planning, research, and organization become simplified with Impress' various view modes. The normal, outline, notes, and slide sorter view modes aid your content production and editing process. ...

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    There are some open source solutions for that, like reveal.js, mdx-deck, Spectacle, remark, webslides or impress.js. Each solution allows you to create presentations yourself in minutes, push them to GitHub, and share them with your audience. Personally, I have tried mdx-deck and Impress.js in the past.

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    The presentation software PowerPoint is proprietary, and hence not so transparent and less cost-effective than some competitors. Discover the best open-source PowerPoint alternatives in this article. ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors. ONLYOFFICE presentation editor for desktop is a free PowerPoint alternative for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The app is ...

  13. The HTML presentation framework

    reveal.js is an open source HTML presentation framework. It's a tool that enables anyone with a web browser to create fully-featured and beautiful presentations for free. Presentations made with reveal.js are built on open web technologies. That means anything you can do on the web, you can do in your presentation. Change styles with CSS ...

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    LibreOffice is a community-driven, free, and open-source office suite. It comes with Impress, a desktop software for creating and editing slide presentations, similar to Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote. In general, it can get clunky like most open-source tools, but it's still a good option for simple presentation software.

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    You need high-quality business presentation software to take your slides to the next level. Some of the best presentation software include Visme, Haiku Deck, Prezi, Microsoft Powerpoint, Canva and Google Slides. In this comparison guide, we'll analyze each of these tools and many more to understand what the difference is between them so you ...

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    Creating presentations is extremely easy. The quality of presentations we can create without having to spend a dime is mind-blowing. Kingsley N. FreeShow is a free and open-source presenter software for anyone to use with ease.

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    5. Libre Office Impress. Libre Office is free presentation software, an open-source alternative to PowerPoint. As you can expect from a free product, it offers only the main features of its "big brother", but it's a good solution for people used to Microsoft's productivity suite.

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    Following a successful pilot project, the northern German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has decided to move from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office to Linux and LibreOffice (and other free and open source software) on the 30,000 PCs used in the local government.

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    LibreOffice is Free and Open Source Software, available for everyone to use, share and modify, and produced by a worldwide community of hundreds of developers. Our software is tested and used daily by a large and devoted user community - we're open to new talent and new ideas, so get involved and influence its future. Built on a strong heritage

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  22. Best Open Source Presentation Software

    Vizzlo is a fully featured Presentation Software designed to serve Agencies, SMEs. Vizzlo provides end-to-end solutions designed for Web App. This online Presentation system offers Collaboration Tools, Offline Presenting at one place. Learn more about Vizzlo . This is Free and Open Source Presentation Software

  23. The Best Presentation Software to get in 2024

    Some of the best presentation software to get in 2024 includes Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, OfficeSuite Slides, Google Slides, and LibreOffice Impress. But, there are plenty of other choices out there, but knowing which one to go for can be difficult. ... Free and open-source: LibreOffice Impress is completely free to use and modify ...

  24. Apache OpenOffice

    I want to stay in touch with OpenOffice. Follow the progress of OpenOffice via announce list, our blog or social media. Official Blog Facebook Twitter YouTube. The official home page of the Apache OpenOffice open source project, home of OpenOffice Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Base.

  25. 5 Best Microsoft Word Alternatives for Linux in 2024

    3. Calligra Words. Calligra Suite, an open-source office suite developed by KDE, offers a set of tools and applications for various office files, vector graphics, and databases. Linux users can use the suite on their desktop PCs, tablets, and smartphones. Its Microsoft Word alternative is called Calligra Words.

  26. xz Backdoor CVE-2024-3094

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    t-mizo (CC BY 2.0) The Eclipse Foundation announced that it is partnering with the Apache Software Foundation and other open source foundations to establish common specifications for secure ...

  29. Cumberland County Master Gardeners hosting environmentally ...

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