15 Best Presentation Software Alternatives To PowerPoint in 2024
To make an outstanding presentation, host a webinar, and speak publicly, you must make a slideshow to go with your presentation. The software you use to create these presentations is just as essential as your skills.
The demand for business presentation software has increased, which has led many businesses to transition to working remotely. You need to consistently create presentations that will grab the audience’s attention, and software with great functionality is ideal for this.
This article will explain alternatives to PowerPoint that will help you pick the best software for your online presentations.
Best Presentation Software for Building Stunning Slides
1. Visme
A Free Presentation Software Ideal for Small and Large Companies
Visme is a content creation tool to tell stories and convert boring data into engaging visuals. It has numerous templates for slideshows, logos, infographics, storyboards, and marketing materials. With several automation features for publishing and display, publishers can set the time to automate online presentations.
Currently, Visme is available as a web and macOS application. The windows version is in development. You can access your projects and files from anywhere because it is cloud-based. It is easy to learn and requires no software download.
This business presentation software provides videos, webinars, and articles to help you learn Visme and gain business skills. Using its basic text editor, you can make captions, headlines, or text blocks for your works. You can contact a specialist through their email support.
Pricing
Visme offers a free plan that is available for as long as you want to use it. This plan provides you 100 MB of storage, and you can download the file in JPG format. It offers three paid plans. The Standard Plan, which costs $25 per month, is ideal for gaining access to the features needed for individual use. You get 250 MB of storage and can download the file as a PDF.
The best value plan for this software is the Business Plan, which costs $49 per month. With this plan, you can manage your brand and scale Visme across the whole team. You get access to 10 GB of storage and can download files in PPTX, HTML5, video, and GIF formats.
The Enterprise Plan is suitable for advanced features, upgraded security, onboarding, support, and integrations. This plan comes with 2-factor authentication for additional security and 25 GB of storage. You can contact a sales representative to discuss a custom quote.
2. Pitch
A Collaborative Presentation Software for Modern Teams
Pitch focuses on real-time collaboration, smart workflows, and intuitive design features. It is built for the way teams work to help teams of all sizes do work. With this software, teams can deliver beautiful presentations pretty fast.
This software is easy to use as non-designers can easily express themselves, and professional designers can completely control their slides. You can embed videos, images, GIFs, and up-to-date data from Google Sheets and Google Analytics.
You can share professional document templates that you can use to research and create your content. It goes beyond sharing visual templates. Editing of slides can be done with your team in real-time. Using Pitch’s i-framing feature, you can play the presentation from anywhere with GIFs and videos.
Pricing
Pitch offers a free forever plan called the Starter Plan for individuals and teams just getting started. With this plan, you get unlimited presentations, live video collaboration, and custom templates and fonts. The paid plans have competitive prices.
The Pro Plan costs $8 per member per month and is suitable for power users and growing teams. You get workspaces roles, video uploads, everything in the Starter Plan, and other unique features. If you belong to a larger organization, the Enterprise Plan is ideal. It offers SAML-based SSO, dedicated manager, and advanced security.
You can contact a sales representative for a custom quote.
3. Prezi
A Web-based Presentation Software that Allows You Interact with Your Visuals on Screen
Prezi is web-based presentation software that allows you to create and present presentations with motion and organic structure. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. With its canvas-based approach, your presentation can move around with the zooming in and out ability. You do not need to download any software since it runs through the web.
You get access to about 100 templates for building presentations. The map template ensures that your audience feels a sense of space and distance between locations. Also, using the iceberg template, you can illustrate how there’s more to a topic than there is. You can as well decide to start from scratch.
Up to 10 people can work on Prezi at once, and it has a drag-and-drop editor that is easy to use. Prezi comes with other apps, which are Prezi video and Prezi Design. Videos can be embedded from YouTube; however, they are not viewable in offline mode.
The creation of Prezi’s presentations can only be done on a computer but can be viewed on mobile devices.
Pricing
Prezi is entirely free and includes up to 5 visuals; however, you can pay for upgrades to get additional features. It also offers a 14-day free trial period when you can try out its features before committing.
The Standard Plan, which costs $3 per month, is ideal for personal use. Using this plan, you can create presentations and designs with advanced privacy options. The most popular plan is the Plus Plan for expert visual communicators. It costs $7 per month.
Suitable for business professionals is the Premium Plan, which costs $9 per month.
4. Google Slides
A Cloud-based Office Suite by Google that Allows You to Edit, Comment, and Share Slides
Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software available through your Google account. The business version of this software is called G-Suite. It is ideal for business professionals, educators, orators, and students who need fast and easy access to presentations. You can make presentations both on and off the web.
There is a general collection of templates that you can choose from to get your presentation done; however, you can start it from scratch. One cool thing about this presentation software is that users can make edits in real-time and collaborate even when on the go. One can give access to others to be able to modify their presentations. Depending on the sharing option, they can edit, view, and comment on the presentation.
With its auto-save option, files are saved automatically. Anytime you make changes in your presentations, Slides saves it immediately. It is available for desktops, iOS, and Android devices.
Pricing
Google Slides is completely free.
5. Keynote
A Native Apple Presentation Software Exclusive to Mac OS Users
Keynote is a slideshow application in Apple fashion. This business presentation has built-in iCloud and Apple Watch support so that users can control their presentations from their wrists. It comes pre-installed on most Mac devices.
This presentation software comes with an array of templates that you can choose from to create your presentation. The interface is super easy to use. Being driven more by images and less by bullet points, Keynote is pretty engaging.
You can collaborate on presentations with anyone and from anywhere, and it works on Macs, iPhones, and iPads. Find where you left off playing videos and movies using Keynote. With its outline mode, you can jot down your thoughts, restructure your ideas, and move concepts from slide to slide.
Slideshows can be played on its window so that you can access other apps during the presentation. You can also view your presenter’s note, current and upcoming slides in a separate window. Using its exportation option, you can export your presentation as a movie or animated GIF to share online.
The split view functionality allows you to use applications physically side by side while each app remains in full-screen mode.
Pricing
Keynote is free for Apple users. They can access it via the cloud with an Apple ID.
6. Ludus
A Popular Presentation Platform for Designers to Use its Broad Capabilities
Presentations created with Ludus are creative, dynamic, and vibrant, but never static. You can easily drag and drop objects such as videos, 3D models, sound clips, cloud-based files, and many more from your computer into your slides.
Ludus allows you to collaborate with your teammates simultaneously without getting in the way of each other. Your videos are automatically converted to the most common video formats so that they can be viewed on any device. You can also clone your presentation by copying it inside your present account or sending it to another one, maybe your team account.
This presentation software is web-based and makes sharing your presentations super easy. You can create fonts or collect from other places to use them in the slides. Users can use the upload option to upload their fonts. You can save Ludus as a desktop app that supports SVG images, JPG, PNG, and GIF by default.
In an environment without the internet, users can use its PDF/HTML export that works perfectly offline. Audios can be uploaded as audio files from DropBox, SoundCloud, and other integrations.
Pricing
All of Ludus’ plans contain all the features. The size of your team determines the amount you will pay. The larger the team, the lower the amount you pay. It offers a 30-day free trial period without credit card information required when you can try out its features before committing.
Ludus has four pricing plans. The Ludus Small Plan, which contains 1 to 15 people, costs $14.99 per month per user. Containing a number of 16 to 35 people is the Ludus Medium Plan, which costs $13.99 per month per user.
The Ludus Large Plan contains a number of 36 to 50 people and costs $12.99 per month per user. Lastly, for a team with 51+ people, the Ludus Corporate Plan is ideal. It costs $11.99 per month per user.
7. Slidebean
A Presentation Software that Designs Its Presentations
Slidebean is ideal for presenters looking to become professionals in their fields because of its user-friendly interface. Users only need to input content and let the software do its job. Presentations are kept in sync and can be shared with anybody, no matter the device they are using.
With its dozens of built-in presentations, users can create their presentations without having to start from scratch. You do not require any additional plugins or installations to embed Slidebean in a website. If there is no internet connection, presentations can be exported into PPT and PDF formats.
The software provides elements such as tables, charts, images, titles, texts, icons, bullets, quotes, videos, and many more to create professional slides. It is ideal for startups, consultants, small businesses, and academics.
You can track presentation views with Slidebean’s presentation insights to tell the time people spent on a presentation and how many slides they got through. Its editor is powered by AI, and it arranges slides automatically.
Pricing
There is a pricing plan from students to startups founders and consultants. Slidebean has a free forever plan which comes with a lot of benefits. Its three paid plans are pretty affordable. The Starter Plan, which costs $8 per month, has all the features that you need to start presenting.
For creating entirely professional presentations, the Premium Plan is ideal, and it costs $19 per month.
The Founder’s Edition Plan is designed for startups founders, and it costs $149 per month. This plan includes design services.
8. Zoho Show
A Collaborative Presentation Software for Modern Teams
Zoho Show is a browser-based presentation software with various templates to create presentations that suit your professional needs. It has similar features to PowerPoint but with a more basic user interface.
With this software’s collaboration features, you can stay in sync with your teams. You can export files in PPTX, PPSX, HTML, ODP, and PDF format with any name that you choose. It works on all desktops and Android devices.
Businesses, students, entrepreneurs, and educators use this presentation software. Using SoundCloud, you can add audio with embed code. Custom branding of your presentations is only available with the premium plans.
Pricing
Zoho Show offers a free plan called the Zoho Docs and is always free for teams of up to 5 users, and each user gets 5 GB. This software offers a 15-day trial period with no credit card required when you can try out its products before committing.
For enhanced security, better collaboration, organization-wide reporting, and analytics, the most popular plan, which is the Standard Plan, is suitable. This plan costs $4 per month. The Premium Plan costs $6.4 per month. With this plan, you get more storage, robust admin controls, an active directory, and a single sign-on. If you subscribe yearly, you get a 20% discount.
9. Beautiful.ai
A Presentation Software with Editable PowerPoint
Beautiful.ai is presentation software that empowers just anyone to build their presentations in a couple of minutes. With its wide array of templates available to pick from, getting started becomes pretty easy. As you keep adding content, your slide keeps adapting.
You can use images as small icons to feature team members with text overlay. Beautiful.ai helps you to create presentations 10X faster. This software allows you to edit and present offline. It allows you to track your presentations to see which slide is getting the most attention.
With Beautiful.ai, you can securely share your presentation so that only the people you want are able to view it.
Pricing
Beautiful.ai offers a free forever plan and a 14-day free trial period when you can try out its fantastic premium features before committing. The free plan is called the Basic Plan, and it is ideal for individuals.
For professionals, the Pro Plan, which costs $12 per month, is suitable. With this plan, you can remove beautiful.ai branding from your presentations, upload custom fonts, and a host of other unique features.
The Team Plan, which costs $38 per user per month, is ideal for organizations. There is no limit on the number of presentations you can create with this plan. You can purchase your plans annually and save 20%.
10. Genially
A Web-based Tool that Allows You Create Animated Infographics and Games
Genially is easy to use as no programming language is required. It has lots of templates that you can use to create your presentations. You can as well start from scratch. Adding visual effects or animations to your presentations makes them attractive.
This presentation software helps you measure the impact you have made on your audience to know what part of your presentation you need to improve for better results. It supports rich media from different platforms. You can pull content from Dropbox, Infogram, YouTube, Twitter, and many more platforms to that effect.
With Genially’s support for collaboration, multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously, allowing for faster completion of the project. Paying subscribers can download Genially presentations for offline viewing.
The interface is super easy and is available in English and other languages. You can add animation effects in seconds.
Pricing
Genially offers a free plan for those who are new to explore before buying it. It offers three paid plans. The Pro Plan costs $7.49 per month. The Master Plan is suitable for getting additional advanced features, and it costs $20.82 per month.
Teams that like a big family can go for the Team Plan, which costs $79.15 per month. With its annual payment, you can save up to 48%.
11. Canva
A Free Graphic Design Platform that Allows You to Create Presentations
Canva uses an intuitive drag and drop editor to design. The Canva schedule feature is a social media tool that puts you out there. This software allows you to create unique designs for professional and personal use. Its interface is so easy that even non-graphic designers can use it.
You can use its millions of texts and fonts to create presentations and social media graphics. With its beginner-friendly features, you can do more than basic cropping and texturing photos. You do not need to install this software on your computer, as you can access it on the web.
The Canva website contains millions of photos that you can download for free. Users can also create their designs from scratch. It is suitable for bloggers, businesses, and professionals.
Pricing
Canva offers a free forever plan that contains the basic features that you need to start designing. It has two paid plans. This plan gives you unlimited access to tools and content. The best value plan is the Pro Plan. You can try Canva Pro free for 30 days to get access to its amazing features before committing. It costs $119.99 per year for up to 5 people.
The Enterprise Plan helps you empower your team, manage your brand, and scale your content all in one place. This plan costs $150 per month for up to 5 people.
12. Haiku Deck
A Free App that makes Presentations Simple
Haiku Deck is hosted online and can be downloaded in .pptx format. This software is best for teachers, trainers, and entrepreneurs. You have access to analytics that will help you understand how your presentations are being viewed. This is best for keeping track of how customers are consuming your presentation.
This presentation software offers thousands of professionally designed templates to choose from. It is available on the web; therefore, you can create, edit, and view decks in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. You can create presentations in the cloud for easy sharing.
Learning Haiku Deck doesn’t take time, as it is super easy to use. You can save your presentations as a video.
Pricing
Haiku Deck offers special pricing to qualifying students, educators, and nonprofit organizations. It offers two paid plans. The most popular plan, which is the Pro Plan, is suitable for teaching, training, and conference presentations. This plan costs $9.99 per month if billed annually and $19.99 per month if billed month-to-month.
For effective selling and engaging webinars, the Premium Plan is ideal. It costs $29.99 per month. This software offers a 7-day free trial period when you can try out its features before committing.
13. Powtoon
A Visual Communication Platform for Creating Animated Videos and Presentations
With Powtoon’s drag and drop editor, you can create custom presentations with ease. You can publish created presentations as PPT or PDF. You can choose from a royalty-free library animation, images, soundtracks, and live-action videos, or you can as well start from scratch.
This tool is more of an animation maker. It allows you to save an offline version of your animated video. You can have it play as a movie instead of a click-through presentation. Your work is saved automatically, so you do not have to worry about losing your presentations.
You can use regular text editing to change the font type and size. For your presentation, you can import audio files and pick from the ones available on the website. Powtoon is super easy to use, and you do not need to be an expert video editor to use it.
Pricing
The free plan is ideal for personal use and has Powtoon branding. Powtoon has three paid plans. The Pro Plan costs $19 per month. You get to save 79% if you purchase the annual plan. With this plan, you can only make five premium exports per month.
Powtoon’s best value plan is the Pro+ Plan, which costs $59 per month. If billed annually, you can save up to 69%. This plan gives you about 10 GB of storage and unlimited access to all content.
The Agency Plan costs $99 per month. This plan gives you access to unlimited premium exports,100 GB of storage, unlimited access to all content, and many other advanced features.
14. Microsoft Sway
A New App from Microsoft Office that makes it Easy to Create Presentations
Microsoft Sway is free to use for anyone with a Microsoft Account. All you need to do is to provide the content, and Sway does the rest. Your connections can see your creations on the Web without signing in, signing up, and downloading anything.
Whenever you want more control over what you share, you can change the privacy settings. With its accessibility view feature, you can have a more comfortable reading experience with keyboard navigation. You can add running voice commentary according to your requirements.
This software introduces the new concept of building “Sways” instead of PowerPoint. Its non-traditional storyline editor allows you to add blocks of content that the software configures into layouts. You can either upload your media or select from the various sources inside Sway. There is the option to upload videos from your device or embed them from YouTube.
Sway works on any device, so long there is an internet connection. You can download your Sway as a Word or PDF to view offline. There is no password protection policy; however, you can share your Sway with anybody so that anyone with the link can access it.
Pricing
Microsoft Sway offers four paid plans. The Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan costs $5 per user per month if billed annually. The desktop version is not included in this plan. Businesses that need complete remote work and collaboration tools should go for Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan, which costs $12.50 per user per month if billed annually.
The Microsoft 365 Business Premium plan costs $20 per user per month. This plan is ideal for businesses that seek a secure remote work solution. The Microsoft 365 Apps plan costs $8.25 per user per month if billed annually. This plan gives you Office apps across devices and cloud file storage.
Prices do not include tax, and You can sign up for its 1-month free trial period when you can get access to its features before committing.
15. Microsoft PowerPoint
A Program Included in the Microsoft Office Suite for Presentations Purposes
Users with an existing Microsoft 365 subscription can access Microsoft PowerPoint for free on their Microsoft devices. While you present, you can add temporary markups to your slide. Your audience can see this, but it is not permanently added to the slide.
The interface is super easy to use because of its familiarity. If you want to create simple conventional presentations, PowerPoint is for you. You can upload videos and images from your device as well as YouTube.
There are both desktops and cloud versions of PowerPoint. The app is available on both Android and iOS devices. You can download your presentation in PPTX and PDF.
Pricing
For up to 2-6 people, Microsoft 365 Family, which costs $99.99 per year, is suitable. With this annual subscription, you get to save 16%. In the mobile app, you get premium safety features. You get up to 6 TB of cloud storage which is 1 TB per person. This plan offers you a 1-month trial period when you can try out its features before committing.
The Microsoft 365 Personal costs $69.99 per year. You can save up to 16% with an annual subscription. It is ideal for up to 1 person and gives 1 TB of cloud storage.
You can download PowerPoint for free on any device, including mobile.
What Makes a Great Presentation Software?
Good presentations are not common; however, great presentations are rare. A great presentation is memorable such that it contains graphics and images in a way that makes it easy for your audience to remember even after many days. As much as you want to use visuals, you should avoid colors and combinations that scream that you lack good taste.
Getting across all the necessary information in your presentation is essential. But you should also keep in mind that an over-lengthy presentation will bore your audience. So, you need to make your presentation as brief as possible.
The magical rule of 10/20/30 will make your presentation perfect. Tell your story in 10 slides, within 20 minutes, and in 30 points/size font. If you cannot convey the most important message of your topic in 20 minutes, then you do not own your presentation.
The ultimate quality of a great presentation is clarity. A presentation needs to be clear enough to convey a message to the audience. If you make a presentation without your audience getting the message, then you have failed. Tell real stories to keep your audience hooked.
How to Choose the Best Microsoft PowerPoint Alternative?
There are many PowerPoint alternatives one can go for. They vary as some have more features than the To make choosing the best alternative easy for you, consider the following criteria.
- Ease of use. Presentation software should be easy to use and straightforward. Anyone, regardless of their skill set, should quickly learn how to use the software and create a presentation. Watch out for those platforms that come with training videos and tutorials to help onboarding users. It should also support additional media to make them more engaging.
- Accessibility. This is a significant factor that one needs to consider when choosing presentation software. You need software with greater functionality to consistently create presentations that grab the audience’s attention. You can use an operating system or browser-based platform, depending on your needs. The operating system requires installation on your computer and does not require an internet connection, while browser-based platforms can be accessed anywhere through the web and need an internet connection to access it.
- Cost. You should consider the price of the presentation software and its features before making your decision. Considering your budget, you might want to go for a platform that offers a free forever plan. You might also be buoyant enough to go for the platform that provides the best functionalities at a high rate. Some presentation platforms offer unique features at a low rate. Whichever fits your needs and budget is what you should go for.
- Unique Features. Apart from the regular abilities of presentation software, you want to go for a platform with extra unique features such as collaboration, support for audio and rich media, robust design tools, a wide variety of templates, and other advanced features.
Presentation Software FAQ
Presentation software allows users to create a presentation of ideas by bringing together images and videos. Presentation software is also known as a presentation program. It is generally used for creating slideshows that display information.
An excellent presentation software gives you the tools and functionalities that you need to create a winning presentation. Presentation software is divided into business presentation software and general multimedia authoring tools.
This software contains a text editor to add your written content. They also support graphic images such as photographs and clip arts to make your slideshow colorful and get your point across.
The major use of presentation software is to create presentations, e-learning packages, and many other multimedia products. It allows you to arrange essential information into a series of slides. You could combine texts, images, links, animations, and videos on each slide to create a unique final product.
Its three main components are a text editor for inputting and formatting text, a facility for inserting graphics and other multimedia files, and a slideshow system for displaying the content.
Presentation software with the best templates are Visme, Pitch, Prezi, Google Slides, Keynote, Zoho Show, and Genially. They have wide arrays of templates that you can choose from to create your unique presentation.
A slide deck is a presentation made up of multiple slides, within each slide displaying some sort of information. Its purpose is to break down information that is hard to understand into digestible parts. A slide deck is a typical PowerPoint presentation or slideshow.
Creating a slide deck helps you remember key points, provides visual cues for your presentation, and helps keep things concise, and saves time. It is pretty easy to create one. The steps to creating a slide deck are:
1. Plan Out the Actual Content of the Deck
This step is about planning what to include in your presentation before worrying about design, layouts, and themes. Start with a problem, then continue with proffering a solution to the problem. Discuss your business strategies, perform a competitive analysis, and then finally share financial projections.
2. Design and Create Your Presentation
Pick a platform to create your slide deck. You want to pick the platform that best suits the topic you wish to present. You can add visuals to make your slide more engaging. Remember that the lesser the words, the more engaged your audience will be. Your slide should be as concise as possible.
Visme is a great alternative as it is cloud-based and allows you to access your projects and files from anywhere.
Prezi is web-based and allows you to create presentations with motion and organic structure.
Google slides allow users to make edits in real-time.
Ludus allows you to collaborate with teammates without getting in the way of each other.
Which Presentation Software Should I Pick for My Business?
Select a presentation software based on your needs, budget, and number of users. If you are looking for a free solution and has all the functionalities you need to create unique presentations, go for Canva, Genially, Beautiful.ai, Zoho Show, Slidebean, Google Slides, Prezi, Pitch, and Visme.
Prezi, Ludus, Beautiful.ai, Haiku Deck, and Microsoft Sway offer a free trial period when you can try out their features before committing. For a large team, Prezi and Genially are suitable as multiple people can work on a presentation simultaneously.
The best software that is easy to use and does not require so much training to get started are Keynote, Genially, Haiku Deck, Powtoon, Microsoft PowerPoint, Pitch, and Prezi. You do not have to carry your laptop everywhere you go. With Google Slides, Visme, Pitch, and Keynote, you can access your presentation from anywhere and on any device.
Google Slides is the ideal choice for freelancers and telecommuters for dispersed teams because it has real-time collaboration features. Making the right decision is a matter of “different strokes for different folks.”