Top 10 PowerPoint Alternatives Compared

Choosing the best presentation software for your needs can mean the difference between closing an important deal and blowing the opportunity of a lifetime.

Think this is an exaggeration? Just remember how many times a badly designed presentation—with slides chock full of text and outdated animation effects—instantly made you think twice about the credibility of the person presenting their product or idea. Or how a glitch or holdup made you lose your patience.

We’ve all heard of death by PowerPoint. You don’t want to be one of those who blow it because they didn’t choose wisely. Luckily, in a post-PowerPoint world, there are a variety of options for every need imaginable.

 

Top 10 PowerPoint Alternatives

To help you make sense of the dozens of options out there, we’ve summarized the most important features of the best PowerPoint alternatives:

1 Visme

A cloud-based, drag-and-drop presentation software, Visme offers users all the tools they need to create not just compelling presentations, but also infographics, data visualizations, reports, product demos and resumes.

Its ready-to-use templates, with HD backgrounds and professionally designed layouts, give users a breather from the all-too-familiar PowerPoint themes.

Packed with millions of free images, thousands of vector icons, graph tools in any style and hundreds of fonts, Visme allows users to create virtually any type of visual content in Its custom design area.

 

Features:

• Publish and share anywhere: Share URL or embed into a site.
• Manage privacy: Control who can see your projects.
• Present offline: Download presentation as image, PDF or HTML5.
• Add animation and interactivity to any element: Insert call-to-action buttons, videos, surveys, quizzes, etc.
• Quickly search for the exact slides you need from a built-in library with 900+ layouts

• Analytics: Access combined statistics of project views in one place.
• HTML5-based: Runs on any browser and device.
• Import PowerPoint presentations.
• Work as a team: Access collaboration and content management tools.
• Searchable libraries with millions of images and thousands of high-quality vector icons
• Create visual slides quickly using drag-and-drop blocks of content with visual stats, maps, figures and pictographs.

Price: Starting at $12 a month per user

Pros: Users can create virtually any visual content—including infographics, charts, reports and printables—in a single place; add animation, full interactivity and audio

Cons: Due to high level of flexibility and variety of options, might take some time to master all of its features

Ideal for: Marketers, entrepreneurs, educators and individuals in general; corporate teams

Other reviews: Huffington Post, ClearVoice, Crazy Egg

 

2 Prezi

This cloud-based software is popular for its nonlinear presentations, which pan and zoom from one page to the next without creating the impression of moving to a new slide. It’s a favorite with a lot of students and educators, especially for its ease of use.

Features:

• View and edit your presentations from any device.
• Store all your presentations in the cloud.
• Share and collaborate with others.
• Download for offline use.
• Use advanced image editing tools.
• Manage privacy.

Price: Paid plans starting at $5 / month per user

Pros: Create nonlinear presentations with ease

Cons: Not fully customizable; can only create non-linear presentations; can actually cause motion sickness in some viewers

Ideal for: Students, educators, speakers, companies

Other reviews:  SmallBizTrends, PCMag.com, PC World

 

3 Keynote

Apple’s alternative to PowerPoint, Keynote is everything you would expect in an Apple product: sleek, sophisticated and intuitive.

Packed with powerful features—such as the ability to create interactive charts, add reflections and picture frames—Keynote makes it easy to create presentations with cinematic-like transitions between slides.

After the release of the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, Keynote is even more intuitive. Presentations are stored in the cloud and available on all devices.

Features:

• Access more than 30 cinematic effects for text and objects.
• Make interactive and animated charts.
• View and edit your presentations from an iPad or iPhone.
• Easily share and collaborate.
• Access more than 30 polished templates and designs.
• Import and edit PowerPoint files.
• Save Keynote presentations as PowerPoint files.
• Use on iPad Pro with Apple Pencil.

Price: Free for all Mac computers

Pros: Compatible with PowerPoint

Cons: Desktop software, not online-based; no slide library

Ideal for: Mac owners

Other reviews: PCMag.com, Macworld

 

4 Slides

This cloud-based presentation software offers a solid and user-friendly alternative to PowerPoint. Its sleek editor workspace allows you to add background images, use a variety of designs and themes, collaborate easily with others and customize any of 10 default slide templates.

You can even other people’s presentations and use them as a template. Slides.com is not to be confused with Slides.ai.

Features:

• Edit and access presentations from any device.
• Manage privacy.
• Present offline.
• Access to analytics.
• Fork presentations.
• Access to revision history.
• Display math formulas.
• Define your own theme with custom CSS editor.
• Add GIFs from Giphy and images from Unsplash.
• Lots of Team features like branded templates and user management.

Price: Paid plans starting at $5 / month per user

Pros: User-friendly; includes beginner’s tutorial; users can copy other people’s design and layout as templates for their own content (this preference can be turned off when creating presentations).

Cons: Create only linear presentations; limited design options such as professional templates and types of slides; no graphs or infographic widgets available.

Ideal for: Startups, students, teachers, individuals

Other reviews: TechCrunch, SitePoint

 

5 Slidebean

This PowerPoint alternative is a good option for all those who don’t have the time to design their own slides.

Slidebean has recreated pitch decks from big-name startups and offers them as ready-to-use templates. There are more themed templates available for users to simply plug in their content.

Features:

• Ready-to-use content templates for different purposes (marketing, business, startups).
• Search and insert curated images or GIFs from Unsplash and Giphy within the software.
• Access to thousands of flat icons.
• Import CSV data to create charts.
• Share and collaborate with others.
• Use the chat feature to communicate with others.
• Browse curated color palettes.
• Access viewers’ actions for each presentation.

Price: Paid plans start at $96 / year per user

Pros: Allows you to focus solely on the content

Cons: No animation

Ideal for: Those who want to create presentations in as little time as possible, startups

Other reviews:  PresentationPanda, TechCrunch, The Next Web

 

6 Zoho Show

Part of a suite of online applications called the Workplace Bundle, Zoho Show provides users with a traditional presentation tool that's online-based.

Like the other PowerPoint alternatives listed here, this presentation software allows users to create and access presentations from any browser or device connected to the Internet.

Features:

• Apply eye-catching animations and transitions.
• Embed live tweets, YouTube videos, and Flickr images.
• Use charts for visualizing data.
• Publish your presentations on websites and blogs.
• Import multiple file types, including .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx, .odp and .sxi.
• Use collaborative tools to allow others to edit and comment on your content.
• Broadcast your presentation from anywhere on any device.

Price: Paid plans of the Workplace Bundle start at $4 / month per user

Pros: Import multiple file types; conferencing option

Cons: Limited animations and transitions; only standard presentation functionality

Ideal for: Business users, students, educators

Other reviews: ZDNet, Blinklist

 

7 Google Slides

Google Slides is the most popular PowerPoint alternative because it’s completely free with a Google account. When logged into Google, Slides is available at any time, even from the email dashboard.

The design process on Google slides is simple and to the point. There are hundreds of templates in different color themes to choose from.

Features:

• All work is saved automatically on the Google servers.
• An entire presentation can be changed as a whole with the color and theme picker.
• Collaborate in real-time with team members.
• Open PowerPoint slides and export finished presentations as PowerPoint files.
• Plenty of templates and themes to choose from.
• Helps users concentrate on the actual slides without frills.

Price: Free for everybody, as long as they have a Google account

Pros: It’s free and easy to use

Cons: Design capabilities are limited to standard features

Ideal for: people who appreciate Google products and need to create presentations with remote teams

Other reviews: ConsumersAdvocate, EnvatoTuts

 

8 Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use PowerPoint alternative. The presentation templates come ready with numerous slides. All you need to do is choose the slides you want to use and switch out the content.

Along with the basic presentation features, animated presentations are also possible if you purchase the Canva for Work plan.

Features:

• Lots of presentation templates to choose from.
• Millions of available images in the paid plan.
• Presenting option right from Canva.
• Download in multiple file formats, including PowerPoint.
• Easy to share to social media profiles.
• Millions of icons to choose from.

Price:  “Free” but assets cost $1 or more to use. Canva for Work is $12.95 / month per user

Pros: Easy to use and lets you create nice-looking presentations fast

Cons: The best features are in the Canva for Work plan; complete presentations can’t be colorized as a whole.

Ideal for: Pretty much anyone

Other reviews: CMSCritic, Capterra

 

9 Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai is a PowerPoint alternative with a twist. The design of the slides is controlled by Artificial Intelligence. Their pitch is that presentations will look great every time without much work from the user. On the other hand, customization possibilities are limited.

Features:

• AI-powered presentation building system.
• Customizing options for each type of slide.
• Color theme picker for the entire presentation.
• Users can password protect presentations for private sharing.
• Collaboration capabilities with an email invitation.
• Export to PDF or PowerPoint.
• Presenter view and speaker notes.

Price: Free. Pricing tiers to be announced sometime in 2019

Pros: AI helps create better presentations fast

Cons: Very limited design capabilities

Ideal for: Students, educators, startups

Other reviews: Techradar, ThePowerpointBlog

 

10 Microsoft Sway

Sway is Microsoft’s own PowerPoint alternative. It’s everything that PowerPoint isn’t. In fact, it is so different, you can’t really tell it’s made by the same company.

Sway is a cloud-based app, which can be accessed through any Microsoft account, such as Hotmail and Outlook.

Features:

• Remix! A function that changes everything at random.
• The default view is a vertical scroll; can be changed to horizontal or slide view.
• Font and color customization for the entire presentation
• Thousands of images available inside the program through online search.
• Animated transitions with custom speed settings.
• Storyline editing.
• Outline and Accessibility views.
• Available in multiple languages.

Price: Free with a Microsoft Account

Pros: A presentation can look like a website, a newsletter or a classic slide presentation

Cons: No tools or options to present data

Ideal for: Students, NGOs

Other reviews: AvePoint, Laptop Mag

This is our take on the best PowerPoint alternatives out there right now. Which of these top-rated PowerPoint alternatives best suits your needs?

 

Your Turn

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