best audio visual presentation software

15 Best Video Presentation Software to Try in 2024

Ready to make an outstanding video presentation? Here are the best tools to help you learn how to make video presentations and create one in no time.

Victoria Greywing

11 minute read

With the rise in remote work, online classes, and virtual events, video presentations have become a crucial aspect of effective communication.

In fact, having a video in a presentation already shows that 32% more people will interact with your content .

Making a video presentation takes time, so having a reliable tool is more important than ever. That's why we've compiled a list of the best video presentation software to try this year.

Whether you're a marketer, educator, or business owner, these tools offer a range of features to help you create engaging and memorable presentations.

Factors to consider when choosing video presentation software

1. ease of use.

The worst thing you need to avoid is spending hours learning how to use tools, not getting any work done, and then giving up in frustration. The software should be easy to use, even for those with limited technical skills. This will ensure that you can create presentations quickly and efficiently.

2. Customizability

Customization is the part that adds a creative look to your presentations. Such tools should allow you to customize your presentations to suit your needs and the preferences of your customers.

This includes the ability to add your branding elements like logo, banner, etc., choose from a range of templates, and add multimedia.

3. Interactive features

Although not essential, interactive elements help engage your audience. Adding quizzes and polls, allowing users to comment on slides, and even embedding videos or other content makes your presentations more memorable.

4. Advanced editing tools

There is no good video presentation without editing. You need tools like an image editor that offer important features like transitions, filters, captions, pitcure upscaling , etc. This will help you create more professional-looking presentations that can grab the viewers’ attention.

5. Compatibility & sharing options

The best video presentations are those that can easily be shared with others. The tool should offer quick export options and compatibility with different devices.

Whether it’s through email or social media, you should be able to easily share the presentations with other users.

Our top 15 video presentation software

Jump ahead to page section.

Powtoon is a cloud-based animation tool that is ideal for displaying data visually . It's an excellent option for HR teams, educators, and marketers who want to create eye-catching materials for their presentations.

The tool offers a range of templates, characters, and backgrounds that you can customize as you like.

Powtoon’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create videos even if you have no prior experience.

You can add text, images, and other visual elements to quickly compose captivating animated videos that share your ideas and stories.

Plus, you can upload audio clips or background music to accompany your visuals and further enhance the impact of your message.

Powtoon is compatible with both Windows and Mac and offers a range of subscription options, making it accessible to everyone.

Source: Powtoon

• Great for creative video content
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Wide range of templates
• Quick share to social media and other platforms
• Offers team collaboration
• Slow loading speed for some users
• Watermark in the free plan

Pricing: 3-month free trial, $15/month for Lite, $60/month for Professional, $100/month for Agency

Movavi Video Editor

Movavi Video Editor helps you learn how to make effective presentations with its intuitive tools. It's user-friendly and offers plenty of features for both beginners and professionals alike.

Do you need a specific transition or title effect? This tool offers a wide selection of them. You’ll also find a library of sounds, music, backgrounds, and text editing options.

Furthermore, you can record your voice and add it to your video as a separate audio track.

Movavi Video Editor has many filters and special effects that will fit any occasion. From retro filters to artistic effects, you can add unique touches to your presentation to impress your audience.

More advanced features include AI background removal , denoizer, and upscaling feature as well as audio editing tools, color correction, and more.

Source: Movavi

• Intuitive interface
• Supports all popular video and audio formats
• Great editing features
• Massive media library
• Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD hardware acceleration
• Free trial limits the audio length and adds a watermark on the output video

Pricing: 7-day free trial, $54.95/year, $74.95 for a lifetime license

A video maker for presentation videos, Lumen5 has everything from business and marketing to educational or training materials, suitable for all types of presenters.

The uniqueness of this platform is its AI-driven text-to-video feature. You can simply enter your text, and Lumen’s video maker will automatically create a video based on your content.

The tool offers a library of images, videos, and music, which you can use to create professional-looking video presentations. You can also upload your images, videos, and audio to customize your video.

Source: Lumen5

• Easy to use
• AI-powered video maker
• Millions of images, videos, and music
• Real-time collaboration feature
• Fewer animation options
• Slow render speed

Pricing: Community (free), $79/month for Basic, $199/month for Starter, $29/month for Professional, Enterprise (custom price)

Storydoc is a revolutionary interactive platform for efficient content creation. It combines templates and a powerful drag-and-drop builder to help you create stories, reports, presentations, and other content quickly.

This online tool provides an intuitive visual editing experience, allowing you to add text, images, GIFs, videos, music, and more.

This tool turns static documents into immersive content experiences that boost engagement, encourage conversion, and stay memorable in readers’ minds.

Storydoc also comes with comprehensive content analytics that lets you see how readers interact with your content and optimize based on what you find.

• Ready-made business templates
• Interactive elements
• Integrations with CRM tools and other apps
• Limited customization
• Few editing options

Pricing: 14-day free trial, $30/month for Starter, $45/month for Pro, Team plans (contact for details)

With Canva, you can easily make professional-looking visuals for websites, social media posts, presentations, posters, and more, without needing any design experience.

Just drag and drop elements onto the slides, add your own images, videos, or audio, or pick one from Canva's library. You can even customize the fonts, colors, and other details for each design. Canva also provides a vast library of event templates like invitation templates , poster templates, flyer templates, and many more.

The best thing is that by using the “Present and record” feature you can transform your presentation into a video format. Select your microphone and webcam and quickly record yourself talking as you show your slides.

Source: Canva

• Variety of templates
• Highly customizable
• Quick share
• Free version limitations
• Can't mix different designs

Pricing: Canva Free, 1-month free trial or $119.99/month for Canva Pro, $149.90/month for Canva for Teams

Biteable is a simple and powerful online video maker that anyone can use. There are many animations, videos & images, soundtracks, and recordings you can add to your project as well as upload your own content.

With a script mode, you can entirely avoid complex editing and use Biteable’s built-in text editor to write out your script. Once you’ve finished, the platform automatically creates an animation based on the script.

All the media is stored in different categories, making it easy to find what you need. You can also measure the performance of your video using Biteable’s analytics feature.

Source: TechCrunch

• Various tools and media are available
• Simple sharing by email, Slack, WhatsApp, and even SMS
• Online collaboration
• Limited editing options
• Can't download video files directly from the platform

Pricing: 7-day free trial, $99/month for Pro, $199/month for Teams

Synthesia is an AI-driven tool for any content creator who loves storytelling and presenting information. It's ideal for creating short animated explainer videos, tutorials, and product demos, as well as for crafting impactful marketing stories.

The platform helps you create a video in minutes with its AI-powered technology. You simply type the text you need to create a video, choose your desired avatar and voice style, and Synthesia does the rest.

You can also customize your video by adding text, shapes, images, and music, and even recording your presentation .

Source: Synthesia

• Intuitive user interface
• Simple video creation process
• Ready-made avatars, voices, and scenes
• Few features in a personal plan
• No collaboration options

Pricing: Free demo (200 words limit), $30/month for Personal, custom price for Corporate

Animoto is an incredibly versatile platform that’s made for various kinds of videos, including video presentations, slideshows, social media content, and more.

Featuring advanced tools like automatic video production and an array of aesthetic templates, it's easy to create eye-catching presentations in minutes.

Animoto offers a library of royalty-free stock footage so you can find the perfect scene to fit your project.

Best of all, users can make their work stand out by adding custom branding and logos, music, transitions, captions, and graphics.

Source: Animoto

• AI-powered smart video creator
• Customizable templates and themes
• Limited customization options
• No advanced audio editing tools are available

Pricing: Free, $8/month for Basic, $15/month for Professional, $39/month for Professional Plus

Animaker is a DIY tool that offers a wide selection of animated styles like 2D and 3D objects, whiteboards, and infographics as well as vibrant backgrounds and scenes.

You can customize the content with text, voiceover, and music options and drag and drop them into your project.

The interesting part is you can build a character representing you to enliven your presentation. Animaker also offers 100M+ stock images and videos and 1000+ templates to choose from.

Source: Animaker

• User-friendly & intuitive interface
• Drag & drop editing
• Versatile animations
• Character builder for personalization
• Limited music library
• Few scene templates

Pricing: Free trial, $10/mo for Basic, $19/mo for Starter, $49/mo for Pro, Enterprise (contact for details)

Wideo is a web-based video maker for industries like marketing, education, and e-commerce.

You can create explainer videos, promotional videos, product demos, and more. With a rich library of cartoon elements, you can build a video from scratch or take advantage of the professional templates that come with the platform.

In Wideo player automatically generates a transcript based on the video’s text and you can switch between video and presentation modes to get a better idea of how the video will look.

Video saves in MP4 format and you can share it on YouTube and other social media.

Source: Wideo

• Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
• Text-to-speech feature
• Pre-made templates for quick creation
• Low-quality templates compared to other tools

Vimeo is a well-known video hosting platform where you can upload and share videos. But it also has an easy-to-use video maker, allowing you to create attention-grabbing videos.

The platform offers a large music library where you can find the perfect tune for your video. With Vimeo’s portfolio feature, you can organize your videos into collections and even create a custom URL for your portfolio.

For making video presentations, Vimeo has many templates you can customize and add your own visuals. Change the scale, opacity, and style of text and graphics, and add layouts, transitions, stickers, narration, and more.

Source: Vimeo

• Built-in sharing options
• Customizable templates
• Integration with multiple popular tools, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Slack.
• Few advanced video editing options
• Very limited access to features in a free plan

Pricing: Free plan, $12/month for Starter, $20/month for Standard, $65/month for Advanced, Enterprise (contact sales)

Vyond provides cartoon animations and videos with customizable characters, scenes, and text effects. This easy-to-use software helps bring your stories and brand presentation messages to life.

The platform comes with many templates based on job roles, categories, and styles.

You can mix them up or start from scratch with a blank canvas and add your own visuals. You can also record your voice directly from the microphone or use text-to-speech.

Source: Vyond

• Big library of characters, props, and backgrounds
• Wide range of styles to choose from
• Version history for collaboration
• Few character and scene customization options
• Hard to manage multiple scenes and characters
• No closed captioning

Pricing: 14-day free trial, $49/month for Essential, $89/month for Premium, $179/month for Professional, Enterprise (custom pricing)

Moovly is an online video maker for presentations with many visual styles like doodles, cartoons, motion graphics, and more. You can quickly add voiceovers using built-in AI voices, generate subtitles, and even translate them to any language you need.

The tool offers great animations and effects for your videos and allows work collaboration. There is also a library of images, videos, music, and sound effects to choose from.

Source: Moovly

• Straightforward interface
• Easy management
• Integrations with YouTube, Google Drive, Dropbox, and other tools
• Free trial limitations
• Lack of variety in designs
• No advanced animation capabilities

Pricing: Free, $99 per month for Pro, $199 per month for Max, Enterprise (custom pricing)

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is the go-to presentation-building tool for countless businesses and professionals. It's a staple of creating stunning visuals and helpful resources for any type of presentation.

Combined with a creative mind, creating presentations no longer remains complicated or time-consuming. With everything from templates to animations, PowerPoint provides all the necessary tools for designing exceptional video presentations.

Customize your slides with whatever images and videos you need to represent your ideas. Then, just export the presentation as a video. You can also upload a voice-over narration or add sound effects.

Source: Microsoft

• All-in-one presentation solution
• Familiar with many users
• Limited advanced design capabilities
• Not good for complex animations
• Large file size when exporting as a video

Pricing: 1-month free trial, $6.99/month with Microsoft 365 or $159.99 one-time payment

Prezi is cloud-based presentation software that allows users to create dynamic and engaging presentations using a range of templates and multimedia elements. It's a great option for industries like education, marketing, and business.

One of the standout features of the tool is its zooming presentation interface, which allows presenters to create a more immersive and interactive experience for viewers.

With Prezi, you can easily create and customize templates, add animations and transitions, and collaborate with others in real time, making it ideal for remote teams and learners.

The basic plan is limited in features, while the advanced plans offer more opportunities like offline access, PowerPoint presentation converter, voiceover, custom branding, analytics, and more.

Source: Prezi

• Easy-to-use interface
• Feature-rich
• Wide range of templates and multimedia elements
• Limited free trial features
• Animations can distract viewers
• The zooming interface can be overwhelming for some viewers

Pricing: 14-day free trial, $7/mo for Standard, $12/mo for Plus, $16/mo for Premium

Enhance the impact of your messages with video presentations

Here they are, video presentation software options available this year, each with its own unique features and capabilities.

By considering the factors outlined in this article, you can select the right software option for your needs and create engaging and memorable presentations that leave a lasting impression on your audience.

And don't forget to check some great presentation examples for inspiration.

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Victoria is a content manager with 4+ years of experience and has formerly worked in marketing and blogging niches. She likes writing texts and researching new complicated topics to share her expertise with trustworthy resources.

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The best presentation software

These powerpoint alternatives go beyond the basics..

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

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

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

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

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

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

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

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

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

The best presentation software: at a glance

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

Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for AI-powered design

Beautiful.ai (web, mac, windows).

Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

Generative AI features aren't great yet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

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

Prezi pros:

Doesn't restrict you to standard presentation structure

Lots of customization options

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

Prezi cons:

Steep learning curve

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (web, ios, android).

Powtoon pros:

Timing automatically changes based on the content on the slide

Can toggle between slideshow and video

Can orient presentation as horizontal, vertical, or square

Powtoon cons:

Limited free plan

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (web).

Genially pros:

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

You can set universal branding guidelines

Unlimited creations on the free plan

Genially cons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

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

Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Start live video calls straight from decks

Pitch cons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best simple presentation app

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

Zoho Show pros:

Simple and easy to use

Version history and ability to lock slides

Completely free

Zoho Show cons:

Templates are pretty basic

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

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

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

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

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

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Chatbot-like experience

Can still manually edit the presentation

Gamma cons:

Not as much granular customization

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

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

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

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

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

What about the old standbys?

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

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

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

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

Related reading:

8 Canva AI tools to improve your design workflow

The best online whiteboards for collaboration

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

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

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Kiera Abbamonte

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

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5 Best Video Presentation Software of 2024

Easily scale your video production in 120+ languages.

Giving a presentation in real-time is challenging, whether you’re delivering it in person or online.  

You’re nervous. There’s never enough time to rehearse. Are people even following along? Is it clear what you’re trying to say?

We’ve all been there, and it’s no surprise that video presentations are gaining popularity . 📹

They’re just like “normal” presentations, except they can save you quite a lot of time (and stress). 

They’re still highly effective as they engage multiple senses – and what’s also great is that they allow for asynchronous communication. 

In this article, we'll analyze the 5 best video presentation software programs for different use cases and help you choose the one to take your video presentation game to the next level.

• Synthesia → best for video presentations with AI presenters
• Loom → best for recording yourself giving a presentation
• Powtoon → best for presentations with animated characters
• Canva → best if you want to choose from a lot of templates
• Vyond → best for cartoon-like video presentations

1. Synthesia - video presentation software for videos with lifelike presenters

Ever thought about making a video presentation with a human presenter?

Including a talking head in your video presentation is a great way to make it more engaging , but many of us struggle with being on camera. 

When creating video presentations in Synthesia , you can choose from more than 140 AI avatars – lifelike presenters – to add to your slides. 

And that’s not all – each of these diverse characters can speak more than 120 languages in different voices and accents.

And the best part?

‍ Research shows that we respond to video presentations with AI avatars similar to the ones with real humans. 🗣

All you have to do to make a video presentation is type in your script (or generate it with AI within the tool), select your presenter, and edit your presentation so it fits your style. If you want, you can also start by uploading your existing slides. 

Editing your video is as easy as creating a PowerPoint deck, and the tool also offers stock imagery and the option to upload your own assets. 

Here’s how making video presentations with Synthesia looks like: 

Sharing your video presentations made with Synthesia is also a breeze, as they can be shared as a link, embedded on a website, or downloaded as an mp4. 

Key features

• ‍ 140+ AI avatars : You can choose from a wide range of human-like AI presenters that establish a human connection with your viewers.
• ‍ Microgestures : You can make the avatars more expressive by using microgestures such as winks, frowns, head shakes, and head nods.
• ‍ 120+ languages : You can turn text to speech in different accents, voices, and languages.
• ‍ 60+ templates : You can start creating your video presentation from scratch or use any of the 60+ professionally designed and customizable templates .
• ‍ Animation markers : You can easily create sleek animations and transitions for different elements of your video presentation.
• ‍ Screen recorder : You can record your screen directly from the online video editor, without having to use a separate tool.
• ‍ Assets library : You can choose from millions of stock assets (music, videos, images, fonts…) or upload your own assets that match your brand.
• ‍ Team collaboration : You can collaborate with your team within the tool by adding comments, tagging people, and creating the perfect video presentation - together.

“The simplicity of creating the content, animations, timing, library, screen recording, intuitive control and many other great features. It is very easy to work with the tool and create great presentations without any need to have some special skills.” Jorge G. on G2

Synthesia offers three paid plans . The Starter plan costs $29/month for up to 10 minutes of video clips; the Creator plan is priced at $67/month, while the Enterprise plan offers individual pricing for different users.

Additionally, there is a free AI video generator available on their website for users to test the platform before committing to a paid plan.

Find more details on pricing options pricing here .

2. Loom - video presentation software for recording your screen and camera

Loom is an excellent video presentation software for creating video presentations that require the speaker to be visible on screen.

It’s great for more detailed presentations and quick team updates. With its desktop app or Chrome extension, users can start recording themselves speaking in just a few clicks. 

This software offers a wide range of features to make interactive video presentations more engaging, including screen sharing, the ability to draw on the screen to emphasize a point, and interactive features to respond to videos. 

With over 200,000 companies using Loom, it has become a popular tool for remote teams, educators, and marketers alike.

Key features: 

• ‍ Screen recorder: You can record your screen, camera, or both directly from Loom's desktop and mobile apps or Chrome extension.
• ‍ Calls-to-action: You can add links to relevant files and resources for your viewers to reference or to help them take the next step when the presentation is over.
• ‍ Engagement insights: You can see who watched your video, how long they watched, and monitor CTA performance to get insights into the effectiveness of your video presentations.
• ‍ Rich reactions: You can enable comments and reactions with emojis, allowing viewers to share their thoughts and feedback on your video presentation.

“I simply share a deck/slides and talk through whatever I want. It's so much more engaging than sharing boring presentations - people can see my face and hear my voice which converts way better on social platforms too.” Tina B. on G2  

Loom has a free version limited to 5 minutes per video, and also offers premium Business and Enterprise plans for advanced recording, analytics, admin, and security.

3. Powtoon - video presentations with animated characters

Powtoon is an online animated video presentation maker that enables users to create engaging and visually appealing video presentations. 

With pre-designed templates and the option to start from scratch, Powtoon makes it easy to create animated videos without any prior experience or technical knowledge.

This makes it a great video presentation software for educators, marketers, and businesses who want to create high-quality video clips that captivate their audience. 

And the main reason Powtoon made it to our list of best video presentation software? 

Their character builder !

With endless options for clothing, skin tones, hairstyles, and accessories, it's super easy to create characters that align with your brand's image and message.

You can even animate them by using 35 different poses and expressions . 

• ‍ PowerPoint to video: You can import your existing PowerPoint presentations and enhance them with animated characters and stock footage, upload your own media, and add audio files.
• ‍ Character Builder: You can customize the animated characters with endless clothing combinations, skin tones, hairstyles, and accessories.
• ‍ Powtoon Capture: You can record your screen, webcam, or both using Powtoon Capture and enhance your animated videos by adding your logo, text overlay, visuals, and other features.
• ‍ Templates: You can choose from over 40 video presentation templates for different use cases. Super handy if you’re not a designer. 😉
• ‍ Collaboration: You can collaborate with others on your video presentations to effectively share ideas and boost creativity, regardless of your account level.

“ Powtoon has excellent features for audio and video editing and presentation for sales and marketing. Share feature helps multiple people to work and collaborate at the same time.” Ranuak A. on G2  

Powtoon offers a free version with basic features, but videos created with it will have lower resolution, a Powtoon watermark, and limited download options.

For access to higher quality videos, pricing starts at $15 per month.

4. Canva - video presentation software for different use cases

If you don’t live under a rock, you probably know about Canva .

But it’s not just a design tool as one might think; it’s also a great video presentation software!

When creating a presentation, you can drag and drop elements, crop, trim and resize clips, and choose from an extensive media library of music and audio tracks.

Canva also offers numerous templates, collaboration features, and built-in recording to make it easy to create and share your presentations.

Once you're done, you can easily download your video in mp4 format or share it using a generated link. 

Key Features

• Templates: You can choose from a variety of pre-designed presentation templates that make creating a professional-looking video presentation really easy.
• User-friendly interface: Canva offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, making it easy to put together a visually appealing presentation quickly.
• Collaboration features: You can share your video presentations with your team for real-time editing and commenting.
• Recording Studio: It allows you to easily set up your camera and microphone, record your presentation with notes in Presenter's View, and pause and resume your recording as needed.

“I love the thousands of templates it has for presentations, documents for us to edit, the varied elements it has, the ease of use and the easy design. Besides the fact that I can share with one or more people, so we can work together.” Talita A. on G2  

Canva has a free version, but with some limitations.

The Pro plan is available for $12.99/month or $119.99/year, offering extra features such as access to more templates, the ability to upload custom fonts, and saving templates as brand kits.

5. Vyond - video presentation software for animated video presentations

Vyond is another video editing software for creating animated videos and video presentations.

Its features include the ability to create relatable characters and add your own dialog and sound. The software also allows for video editing with customizable templates, characters, and props to keep the message on-brand.

You can share your video presentations by providing a link with view only, copy only, edit, or full access permissions. Additionally, you can download videos in HD.

• ‍ Visual styles: You can choose from three different visual styles - contemporary, business friendly, and whiteboard - to set the tone for your animated video presentation.
• ‍ Templates library: You can access Vyond's library of templates to save time and avoid starting from scratch when creating your animated video presentations.
• ‍ Audio and lip syncing: You can record audio in Vyond or use an external platform, and then assign the audio to a character for lip syncing.
• ‍ Shared spaces and libraries: You can easily share folders and media assets with your team from the account level, and securely share your video presentations with relevant collaborators.

“I like that you can change out characters and scenes with two clicks without it affecting or moving your characters out of alignment. Other powerful features include a wide range of animations for characters and a good selection of assets.” Laureen B. on G2

Vyond has a free trial available for users to test the software. The "Essential" plan costs $25/month but includes a Vyond logo watermark in the bottom left corner of each video. Other plans start at $54/month.

Well, that would be our analysis of the best video presentation software of 2023. 🙂 

Naturally, your choice depends on several factors, but we hope this article helped you make the right decision. 

➡️ Synthesia: best AI presentation maker to convert text to speech in 120+ languages with AI avatars as presenters.

➡️ Loom: great video presentation software if you want to record your screen as well as yourself presenting.

➡️ Powtoon: great if you want to build animated characters to personalize your animated video clips.

➡️ Canva: video presentation maker with numerous templates that also allows you to add a recording of yourself if needed.

➡️ Vyond: choose from three visual styles and add animated characters to your video presentations.

‍Want to dive deeper?

Start with Synthesia and generate a free AI video in 5 minutes.

Frequently asked questions

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How to guides

How to Make a Video Presentation With No Equipment

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Video ideas and resources

10 Creative Video Presentation Ideas

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Everything you need to know about interactive video

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15 Best Corporate Video Examples of 2024

See 2024's top corporate videos in action! Click to explore 15 powerful examples and boost your video strategy with our 5 expert tips.

Ready to try AI video editing software?

Create an account and get started using Synthesia, with full access to all 160+ avatars and 130+ languages.

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Best Presentation Software of 2024

Table of Contents

• Best Presentation Software
• Things To Consider When Buying
• How We Chose

Everyone has a message to share in some form. With presentation software, you can communicate that message a little easier and with more spark. If you don't have design and animation skills, don't worry; apps like Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint make it easy to craft a slideshow that helps people understand the concepts you're trying to convey.

Many of the apps in this buyers' guide are geared toward business presentations since that is often the primary use case. However, a few provide some slick tools for educators, entrepreneurs, community groups, and even family members to make a photo slideshow for a family reunion. Read on for the best presentation software available today.

• Best Overall: Google Slides »
• Most Compatible: Microsoft PowerPoint »
• Best For Mac Users: Apple Keynote »
• Most Flexible: Prezi »
• Best Budget: Visme »
• Best For Entrepreneurs: Slidebean »
• Most Powerful: Canva »

Best Overall: Google Slides

Highly integrated With Other Apps

Totally free

Not integrated with Microsoft products

Minimal support

When Google Slides debuted in 2006, it took the world by storm. That’s because it was integrated even back then with Gmail, Google Docs, and other popular Google apps many of us use in business, at school, and in our personal lives.

Google Slides is entirely free, and there are no hidden costs or upgrade plans. What’s surprising, though, about Google Slides is that it is a highly capable app for presentations – easy to use, with plenty of templates, fonts, animation options, and integrations.

Apart from that, the key feature here is real-time collaboration. Other users can join you as you create and edit slides. They can comment and make suggested changes, or simply start editing the slides on their own. (You can decide if other users can suggest changes or make them directly.) You also can view speaker notes on a laptop when you run the slideshow on an HDTV or projector. Google Slides integrates nicely into the online meeting app Google Meet, and it can open Microsoft PowerPoint files and export in that format as well.

Overall, Google Slides wins extra points because of how intuitive it is. There’s hardly any learning curve with the app, and since it runs in a browser window, everything you create and edit will be saved automatically. For business users, teachers, or just about anyone in a hurry to share a complex message, creating a Google Slides presentation is a snap – which is why it is our overall top pick.

Specifications:

• Operating systems are supported: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android, Linux
• Number of templates and designs available: 23
• Integrated apps: Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox, Box, LumApps
• Collaboration features: Live editing, suggested edits
• Multimedia supported: Photos, videos, audio, GIFs, and stickers
• Export options: PDF, PowerPoint, Webpage, JPEG
• Customer support options: Google Workspace only
• Added features: Google Duet AI
• Interface enhancements: Real-time editing and collaboration

Most Compatible: Microsoft PowerPoint

Highly compatible

Online and desktop versions

Easy to use

No free version

Templates are not as trendy

Microsoft PowerPoint is the app you want for compatibility with other apps and programs. Released in 1990, this presentation app is well-known in business circles and runs on just about any computer in the world. Because it’s so compatible, you will likely not have any trouble running the app on your phone or a tablet, in a browser, or even on seriously outdated PC laptops and desktops.

While apps like Prezi add slick animations and transitions that make a presentation come to life, PowerPoint is more like a trusted business partner; it works on just about any computer, the interface is well-known and straightforward, and it’s likely that everyone you know and collaborate with is already familiar with the app. Every other presentation app we reviewed also supports PowerPoint in terms of directly opening or importing the file, and exporting as a PowerPoint file.

You'll need a Microsoft 365 Personal Edition subscription to use PowerPoint. It may be an app that’s already installed and included with a new computer, at least for a trial period.

• Operating systems are supported: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android
• Integrated apps: Adobe PDF, Shutterstock, YouTube, and many others
• Multimedia supported: Photos, videos, audio
• Export options: PowerPoint, XML, PDF, JPEG, and many more
• Customer support options: Personal or business support
• Added features: Integrated live camera, Microsoft Teams integration
• Interface enhancements: Microsoft Copilot, speaker coach

Best For Mac Users: Apple Keynote

Exceptional designs

Desktop only

Graphic designers love Apple Keynote, mostly because the included templates and design options are so stellar. Your presentation will really come to life, helping you communicate about even complex subjects with flair and a trendy look.

Using the app feels a bit like you're the late Steve Jobs creating an award-winning presentation that will grab an audience. Jobs had a way of captivating those in the audience, and Keynote helps you do that with some of the best presentation templates around. For example, there are 40 templates to choose from, many of them full of color and using the trendiest fonts. Keynote also includes 100 transitions and animations to liven up a presentation. The app also includes 700 different shapes and icons that will help you enhance your slides.

Apple Keynote is powerful enough for any user, but it’s important to know the limitations. For starters, Keynote only runs on Mac computers. That makes it less compatible with Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. You can export the presentation from Keynote as a PowerPoint file, which is fine, but it means no one can edit the Keynote slides directly; they will have to use PowerPoint.

Keynote also only runs as a desktop app. That means you won’t benefit from the live editing and commenting features of Google Slides, where you can collaborate with anyone in real time on the same file. Instead, Keynote is more static, as slideshows can't be edited as a group in a browser window. It’s still incredibly powerful and intuitive but with a few key downsides.

• Operating systems are supported: Mac, iOS
• Number of templates and designs available: 50
• Integrated apps: FaceTime, WebEx, Zoom, iCloud
• Collaboration features: Collaborate through iCloud
• Multimedia supported: Video, audio, images, 3D objects, stickers
• Export options: PDF, PowerPoint, Movies, animated GIFs, images
• Customer support options: Online help, support communities
• Added features: Cinematic transitions, Keynote Remote on iPhone
• Interface enhancements: Inspectors help with formatting

Most Flexible: Prezi

Unique concept

Trendy visuals

Unique design templates

Harder to learn

There’s something very compelling about Prezi, the presentation app that provides the most flexibility in terms of the message you are communicating. For starters, this is an app that knows it’s all about the message, whether you're an educator, business owner, entrepreneur, or even a scientist or engineer. Instead of a slideshow, you create a “canvas” with topics and subtopics. Think of it as a way to augment what you are saying with animated annotations, swoosh effects, and charts.

Prezi is the best at guiding you to the most powerful design features and giving you the tools to make even a complex subject more interesting and easier to understand. Part of this extreme flexibility has to do with how you're not creating slides at all, but enhancing a topic. Another way to think of Prezi is more like an animated whiteboard; when you show a presentation, it can come to life as you speak through a webcam.

All of this flexibility means you aren't limited to a boring slideshow, although there may be times when you are asked to make a slideshow and nothing more. For example, a school assignment or a boss might dictate that you need to create basic slides, not an animated whiteboard session. This is where you have to decide if Prezi matches the goals of the message you are communicating about.

• Pricing options and plans: Standard ($7/month), Plus ($15/month), Premium ($19/month)
• Operating systems are supported: Windows, Mac, Linux
• Number of templates and designs available: 210+
• Integrated apps: Google Drive, Slack, Canva, Zoom
• Collaboration features: Real-time editing, comments
• Multimedia supported: Photos, icons, video, GIF
• Export options: PNG, JPG, PDF, GIF, and MP4.
• Customer support options: Knowledgebase, online support
• Added features: Offline mode, analytics
• Interface enhancements: Broadcast link, tool tips

Best Budget: Visme

Free version available

Added visual tools

Good overall value

It takes more time to learn

Expensive pro plans

Visme is the best budget option because there is a free version that still provides many of the features you might need. It’s also a good value, because (similar to Canva) you can access all of the graphic design features to create infographics, brochures, logos, and rich documents all without paying for the premium version.

Even more important, Visme is a good value if you do choose the Starter or Pro plans because you can then unlock advanced features you might only find in Adobe Visual products. For example, at the Pro level, you can create an entire brand kit for a company including logos, brochures, and flyers that all have the same look.

While it's called an all-in-one marketing design platform and has hints of Canva, the first tool you would likely use is for creating presentations (e.g., It's the most prominent tool listed on their site). Because everything is geared more toward marketing and sales, Visme templates emphasize things like growth metrics, charts, and bullet points used to explain a product or service. Visme is also meant more for a group of business users. You can collaborate in real-time, leave comments on presentations, and even follow a workflow to mark presentation tasks as in progress or done.

Like Canva, because the Visme app is part of a suite of visual design products, it might take a little more time to learn all of the added tools. The presentation tool is just one of many included, even if this tool alone is easy to learn.

Visme is an extensive product with an upgrade path that unlocks more templates, customer support, and more supported file formats. Overall, it’s a good value because you can still create presentations without having to pay extra.

• Operating systems are supported: Mac, PC, iOS, Android
• Number of templates and designs available: 13,000
• Integrated apps: Google Drive, Vimeo, Dropbox, Survey Monkey, and many more
• Collaboration features: Real-time collaboration, assign tasks
• Multimedia supported: Photos, videos, audio, GIFs, 3D graphics
• Export options: JPEG, PNG, PDF, MP4, GIF, PPTX, HTML5
• Customer support options: Email, chat, in-app
• Added features: AI features, forms
• Interface enhancements: Tool tips, video training

Best For Entrepreneurs: Slidebean

Design for entrepreneurs and salespeople

Unique features

Not as powerful as some

Not as well-known

Most presentation software is flexible and powerful enough for any message and for any purpose. However, Slidebean focuses on a more narrow segment. The app is designed to create a “pitch deck,” which is something an entrepreneur or salesperson uses to pitch a product.

For example, let’s say your company sells a new widget. Using Slidebean, you can explain the features and benefits, include a slide about pricing, and use the tools that are intended more for selling a concept than perhaps merely explaining it.

Once you finish creating the pitch deck, you can share it as a link for others to view. You can then measure how much time people spend viewing the slides, including time spent on specific slides in the presentation. Another major differentiator with Slidebean is that you can work with professional designers and writers (for a fee, of course) who will create the pitch desk and write all of the copy for you.

• Operating systems are supported: Windows and Mac browsers
• Number of templates and designs available: 160
• Integrated apps: None
• Collaboration features: Editing (not simultaneous), sharing
• Multimedia supported: Images, icons, GIFs
• Export options: PPT, PDF, and HTML
• Customer support options: Knowledgebase
• Added features: Consult with experts, finance templates
• Interface enhancements: Startup video lessons

Most Powerful: Canva

Thousand of templates

Integrates with other Canva tools

Limited export options

Known as an “online graphical design platform” for everyday users, Canva provides plenty of tools for creating logos, brochures, postcards, and presentations.

Because these tools are all integrated, Canva is powerful enough for any message you want to communicate. It’s ideal for business, personal use, and schools. If you decide to build a presentation, you can also incorporate logos, fonts, clip art, and animations that are built into Canva. It means the palette for creating a presentation is more flexible because all of the other design tools are right at your fingertips. Let’s say you want to create a pitch deck about a new startup. You can create the logo, choose the colors and fonts, and then create the slideshow. Most presentation apps in our buyers' guide other than Visme don’t provide this level of flexibility and power in one online app.

Canva lets you run the presentation from within Canva itself, or you can export the slides and use them in Microsoft PowerPoint. There are thousands of templates available. Once you select a look and feel for your presentation, you can pivot and use those same graphics, fonts, and designs in a brochure or other material.

With all of this power in terms of visual design software comes a slight learning curve. Canva is intuitive and the interface is well-designed, but there are so many tools available that it takes some time to learn them all.

• Operating systems are supported: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, browser
• Number of templates and designs available: Thousands
• Integrated apps: Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, HubSpot, and many more
• Collaboration features: Real-time editing, whiteboards
• Multimedia supported : Photos, icons, graphics, data visualizations, media elements
• Export options: PDF, JPG, PNG, PPTX, MP4
• Customer support options: Email
• Added features: Magic Switch, Magic Write, Magic Animate
• Interface enhancements: Search for designs, generate with Magic Design

The Bottom Line

If you're short on time and just need to create a presentation without a lot of hassle, Google Slides is the app for you. It’s completely free without any trial versions of “pro” upgrades, yet it's also quite powerful and intuitive to learn. Google Slides is also our top pick because it integrates into other Google apps like Gmail and Google Docs, is widely used and highly compatible, and still gets the job done when the main goal is to finish a slideshow and share your message.

Things To Consider When Buying Presentation Software

Features and functionality: When it comes to presentation software, it’s all about the templates. As you are considering which app to use, it’s a good idea to evaluate which templates are available and if they meet your needs. We’ve also noted how many templates are included with each app. Beyond that, look for the supported file formats since that will determine who can use and open the presentation. Collaboration features are also important, making it easier to work on a presentation within a group and make comments for everyone to see.

Ease of use and user interface: Creating a presentation shouldn't feel cumbersome. When you start the app, it should be easy to create the first slide from a template, add more slides, fill in the text and images, and finish the entire project without having to learn complex features. Apple Keynote is a good example of an app that's intuitive at first, and then you can always explore more advanced features later on.

Compatibility with different file formats: The most well-known presentation app is Microsoft PowerPoint. So it’s important that the app you choose supports the popular PowerPoint format. Beyond that, look for software that also supports PDF files in case you want a printed version of your slideshow or to share it online.

Collaboration and sharing capabilities: With presentation software, being able to work on a slideshow with a group of people all at the same time can be a time-saver but also produce better results. It should also be easy to leave comments for others to review. Once you're done with the presentation, it should also be easy to share the file or an online version of the presentation with others.

Customization options for design and branding: Visme and Canva allow you to customize the graphics and even make logos and experiment with a variety of fonts. All presentation apps provide ways to edit graphics, resize photos, and even incorporate video into your slideshow. Not every app makes it as easy to edit graphics as Google Slides does, however.

Availability of templates and pre-designed layouts: As with many software programs, templates save time and effort. An app like Microsoft PowerPoint includes pre-designed templates and graphics you can use to enhance a slideshow. Visme is a good example of an app with extensive templates (it has thousands built-in). While Apple Keynote doesn't have as many templates, the ones that are included tend to be more well-designed and trendy.

Pricing and licensing: Most presentation apps offer a monthly subscription to help you get started making a slideshow. In some cases, such as Visme and Slidebean, there’s a basic free version to help you experiment with the app right away. Only Google Slides is entirely free with no extra pricing options. Microsoft also offers a fully licensed version of PowerPoint as opposed to paying for a monthly subscription. The full licensed version costs $159.99.

Customer support and training resources: Microsoft is arguably one of the best companies to choose if you're interested in customer support. Because the product costs a little more – especially if you purchase the full licensed version – it includes extensive technical support. That said, even though Google Slides is free and customer support can be hit or miss, there are so many people using that product that you can usually find answers to questions by doing a simple Google search or asking on public support forums. Also, training videos are more readily available for Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint because they're both so popular.

Integration with other software and tools: Integration is key when it comes to presentation software because you want to be able to access important graphics, photos, and videos easily. Canva is perhaps the most integrated option for that reason alone. It's a graphics platform for creating graphics and other design materials, so when you make a presentation, you can easily find what you need.

Security and privacy features: Security and privacy might not be the first concern when it comes to presentation software, since you might be making a simple how-to for employee orientation or a photo slideshow of your vacation. However, for a business creating a new product or for a new startup that has not launched yet, be sure there is a way to protect your presentation from prying eyes.

How We Chose The Best Presentation Software

Our contributor John Brandon poured over specifications and features for the best presentation software around. He’s used presentation apps since the debut of Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides. He also consulted with business owners who have started companies and need to communicate about their firms. This includes David Ciccarelli, an entrepreneur who started a company called Voices (an audio and video tech startup) and is the CEO of Lake , a vacation rental business. He also tapped Stephen Gagnon, a web designer with the search engine optimization company Web Scour , who has visual design and branding experience.

WHY SHOULD YOU TRUST US?

John Brandon worked in the corporate world for 10 years, often creating presentations for large teams and at corporate functions. He worked as an Information Design Director at Best Buy Corporation. Since then, he has tested and reviewed thousands of tech products including presentation apps, Wi-Fi routers, televisions, office products, and everything in between. His writing has appeared in Wired magazine, Inc. magazine, FoxNews.com, LAPTOP magazine, and many others.

For anyone who wants to communicate about a new product or service, help new employees with onboarding, or even share photos from a recent vacation, presentation software helps you communicate visually. The basic idea is that you can create a slideshow that augments and enhances what you have to say.

Presentation software is designed to help you communicate a message to an audience, either in a classroom, a conference room, or at home. You create a slideshow, insert graphics, photos, and videos, and then run the slideshow full-screen. When you run the presentation, you can click the mouse button or press the arrow keys on a computer to go back and forth in the slideshow.

Most modern presentation apps charge a monthly fee, usually around $8 or $12 per month. Google Slides is the exception to this rule since it is entirely free. Typically, with higher costs for the pro and premium plans, you gain access to more templates, more graphics, and the ability to export in more file formats, such as HTML or video files. At the high end, Microsoft PowerPoint also offers a fully licensed version, as opposed to a monthly charge.

The classic, tried-and-true presentation apps like Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote are available as a desktop version you install. In most cases, you will sign up for the app and then download the installation file and run that installer. However, more modern apps like Google Slides and Canva run in a browser window and don't require any installation.

PowerPoint is sometimes included on a Windows laptop. However, if you're looking for a fresh start with new templates and features for animation and video that go beyond PowerPoint and Keynote, you might consider upgrading. Also, presentation tools are now included in apps like Canva and Visme, making them more integrated.

U.S. News 360 Reviews takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.

Best presentation software of 2023

Let’s put on a slideshow.

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Whether you’re a student or a working professional, everybody has to make presentations from time to time and that usually involves presentation software. But when you’re frantically Googling around to refresh your PowerPoint knowledge, it’s only natural to wonder what is really the best presentation software out there. Yes, everybody knows that Microsoft’s the biggest player in the slideshow game but there are actually a lot of alternatives to explore. If you expand your horizons, you may find another app that makes more sense for you. Expand your office app horizons and see how the best presentation software can make your job a little easier.

Best overall: Microsoft PowerPoint

Best for professionals: canva, best for zoom: prezi.

• Best for Mac: Apple Keynote  

Best for students: Beautiful.ai

Best budget: google slides, how we chose the best presentation software.

As a journalist with over a decade of experience, I know how to present information to all sorts of audiences effectively and efficiently. Over the years, I’ve worked with a variety of clients to craft copy for presentations, as well as the slideshows themselves. I’ve used the best software in the business, as well as quite a lot of the bad stuff, so I know what will work for you and your needs. 

In making this list, I relied on my own firsthand experience with presentation software, as well as consulting professional tutorials and critical reviews. I also personally created a number of sample slideshows using prebuilt templates and custom layouts of my own in order to put the programs through their paces. I used both the stalwart software suites that everyone knows, as well as a number of lesser-known alternatives that have emerged over the past few years. If an impressive new program hits the block, we will update this list accordingly once we get some hands-on time with it.

Things to consider when buying presentation software

There has been an explosion of presentation software over the past few years, and each of the program’s developers has their own pitch to lure people away from PowerPoint. The most important things to consider when choosing presentation software will vary from person to person. A small business owner putting together a professional presentation with original branding may need different tools to make an appealing pitch, versus a student building a last-minute slideshow for a group project to present the results of their research in Econ class.

There are a wide variety of bells and whistles that presentation building programs boast as their killer features, including brand kit integration, easy social media sharing options, offline access, seamless collaboration, AI suggestions, and analytics. These extra features will seem very helpful to enterprise customers, but the average person should realistically prioritize more traditional factors like ease-of-use, customizability, and cost. There are, however, a few elements that every single person who uses presentation software needs, so let’s walk through the fundamentals.

Ease of use

No one wants to spend hours learning how to make a basic slideshow. While all of these programs take time to master, some of them are easier to pick up quickly than others. An intuitive piece of software grabs your attention and allows you to perform basic actions like adding slides and assets without time-consuming tutorials. The more professional-grade programs out there might take a little more time to master, but they’re rarely difficult to use.

Prebuilt templates

The number one thing that you want from a presentation software is a good-looking final product, and templates help you achieve that goal quickly and easily. All of the competitive presentation software suites out there have a library of pre-built templates that let you plug in information quickly. Quality and quantity separate the good programs from the great ones, though. Some apps have more templates than others, and some templates look better than others. On top of that, some programs lock their best templates behind a premium subscription, which leaves you relying on the same basic structures over and over. 

The truly professional-grade software also includes a selection of prebuilt art assets to help you bring a personal touch to the presentation. If a program doesn’t have an impressive set of templates, it isn’t worth using.

Customizability

While most people want to start building their presentations with a template, you need to change some things around if you want to keep things looking fresh. Professionals, in particular, will probably want to customize every aspect of their slideshows, from the color of the background to the exact pixel position of images. This obviously increases the amount of time it takes to craft a presentation, so it’s important that the systems for making those tweaks are intuitive and easy to use. Not every user is going to need the level of customizability, but it’s definitely something worth considering.

Who’s it for?

Every presenter needs to build a slideshow for their audience. They should probably ask that question when they pick which presentation software to use as well, as it can help determine what software they should use. Students might need the expansive collaboration tools of certain platforms but might not need the pinpoint design controls in others. While the presentation software listed below can all make a great slideshow with enough time and effort, your own use case and the intended audience will have a big impact on your choice.

Cost & affordability

Very few presentation builders have a simple, one-time price tag. Most operate on a subscription model, where you can buy a month’s use for a certain amount, or save money by buying a year at a time. A few are free, though many appear to only offer a free trial or stripped-down version that will allow you to put together something basic before quite literally buying in.

If you’re looking to build just one or two presentations a year, it’s probably best to stick to one of the free options. However, if you have to build slideshows on a regular basis, it’s probably worth sinking your money into a subscription to the program you really like.

Generally speaking, as you might expect, the more impressive and in-depth software costs more than the more traditional fare. However, because many of the most popular programs in the space (such as Microsoft PowerPoint) come as part of a suite, you will need to weigh the benefits of not only the presentation software but also the other programs that come along with it. If you’re a die-hard Microsoft Word user, for example, you’re already paying for the Microsoft Office suite, but the calculus gets more complicated if you prefer Google Docs.

The best presentation software: Reviews & Recommendations

By now, you probably have a good idea of what you should be looking for in presentation software, so now we’ll get into the interesting part. As mentioned above, we’ve broken down our picks based on a few common use cases, as well as the criteria we mentioned above. Regardless of which one you decide on, all of these programs are powerful tools that can produce a slick slideshow with a little time and effort, and you’d be well served by any of them.

MobiSystems

Why it made the cut: Whether you’re a broke student or a busy professional, Microsoft PowerPoint can do whatever you need. It’s also reasonably priced.

• Platforms: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web
• Suite or standalone: Microsoft Office 365 Suite
• Special features: Designer, MS Office integration
• Free version: Yes
• Well-known interface imitated by competitors
• Powerful and accessible
• Good templates
• Part of a popular software suite
• Slight learning curve

Even after testing more than a dozen programs, Microsoft PowerPoint remains the go-to presentation software for most people. Setting the industry standard, it offers great templates, an accessible interface, an impressive library of prebuilt art assets, and plenty of tools for building a slick slideshow. It also supports real-time collaboration, offline editing, and third-party content embedding. At $70 a year, PowerPoint is significantly cheaper than most of its competitors and it’s part of Microsoft Office, a software suite that most companies pay for and workers can’t live without. 

Of course, it isn’t perfect. PowerPoint makes it very easy to make a basic presentation, but it will likely take you longer to make something that looks polished and professional in PowerPoint than with design-forward programs like Canva or Prezi. Even top-flight presentations are achievable, though, in a reasonable timeframe. PowerPoint might not be the best presentation program for every situation, but it’s certainly the best for the average person.

Why it made the cut: Canva creates beautiful, professional-grade presentations faster than its rivals, and it’s easier to use than most.

• Platforms: Web, Windows, iOS, Android
• Suite or standalone: Standalone
• Special features: Amazing templates, very customizable
• Excellent free version
• Extremely easy to use
• Makes beautiful presentations fast
• Eye-catching templates
• Harder-to-use advanced features
• Limited offline use

If you need to make a striking business presentation in an hour, Canva is absolutely the software for you. Designed from the ground up for business professionals who don’t want to have to use another program (i.e., Photoshop or GIMP) to create visually compelling content, Canva delivers on this promise in spades. 

Canva’s gorgeous templates are the best of any of the programs we tested, and its free version is far more robust than you’d expect for a costless trial. Unlike many of these other programs, it creates virtually any marketing material you can imagine, including videos, logos, social media posts, and even resumes. It also includes splashy features that most people won’t use, like brand kit support and easy sharing to social media.

Canva’s simplicity has drawbacks, too, though. It can be a bit difficult to get it to make complicated charts, tables, or diagrams, and it lacks the familiar (but clunky) customizability of PowerPoint. However, if you’re looking to make the most beautiful presentation you can, Canva is a great choice for your business.

Why it made the cut: Prezi is a strong program that structures its basic features in a completely different manner than its competitors. It also has very good Zoom integration.

• Platforms: Web
• Special features: Zoom integration, unique structure
• Free version: No (Two-week free trial)
• More creative structure than competitors
• Intuitive interface
• Expansive feature set
• Doesn’t work for everyone
• Must pay more for advanced features

If you’re really tired of the straight-line structure mandated by other presentation software, Prezi gives you a little more freedom to build things your way. Prezi uses a topic-oriented form that allows you to easily string your ideas in an order that makes sense to you. The basic idea behind Prezi is that you create bubbles of individual content, and then you thread a path through those ideas to create a presentation with a physical form that’s more enticing and conversational than just a linear succession of slides.

While this unique approach makes Prezi a worthy alternative on its own, the app also boasts plenty of specialized features you’d want in a premium program, including a large asset library, social media integration, and collaboration support. 

Though any presentation software can work with Zoom via the screen-share function, Prezi features a very useful video call-focused mode, Prezi Video, which allows you to build a presentation as an overlay that appears in your Zoom window so people can see you and your slides.

Prezi’s freeform structure isn’t going to work for everyone, but if Powerpoint feels stifling, it might open new doors for you.

Best for Mac: Keynote

Why it made the cut: Apple’s answer to PowerPoint might not be as popular as its competitor, but it’s still pretty powerful in its own right.

• Platforms: macOS, iOS, Web
• Suite or Standalone: Apple Software Suite
• Special features: iCloud support, multiple formats
• Free version: Yes (with an Apple account)
• Familiar to most Mac users
• Better asset library than most
• No-frills feature set
• Lacks unique selling points

If you’re a Mac user , you’ve probably at least considered using Keynote to put a presentation together. While all of the other programs on this list work on a Mac as web apps, Keynote is the only app made specifically for the platform.

Like PowerPoint, Keynote is a wide-reaching program designed to help anyone make a sharp-looking presentation, from students to professionals. It has a more robust feature set than other PowerPoint competitors–including better default templates, a bigger asset library, and desktop support. It doesn’t quite have the versatility of enterprise-facing apps like Canva, but you can put together a great-looking slideshow for school or a recurring meeting.

On the other hand, it can be a little tricky to pick up: The interface isn’t quite as intuitive as Google Slides, which is also free. If you have access to both, you get a choice: Build a more striking presentation in Keynote, or put something together quickly in Slides.

Beautiful.ai

Why it made the cut: Beautiful.ai’s AI-powered presentations allow you to make a sharp slideshow in no time flat, and its generous free trial gives time to try it out.

• Special features: AI integration
• Clean interface
• Modern features
• Simple and effective
• Expensive for what it is
• Limited assets and templates

Looking to build a clean, modern presentation in as little time as possible? Beautiful.ai uses AI to help you build a visually stunning presentation in no time flat. While it’s less of a household name than our other picks, it’s the choice of many tech companies for its uncluttered interface, eye-catching templates, and overall no-fuss approach. 

Compared to PowerPoint or Canva, Beautiful.ai does not have a rich feature set or an infinite variety of template options. What the content library lacks in volume, it makes up for in style, though. Its appealing, elegant content elements lend themselves to clean, modern presentations. More importantly, the program’s AI assistant knows how to use those assets. It automatically tailors your slideshow’s design to fit the information you want to present, so you’ll wind up with something thoughtfully prepared before you know it.

Why it made the cut: Google Slides is not only an excellent presentation program—it’s also one of the only ones actually free with no strings attached.

• Platforms: Web, iOS, Android
• Suite or standalone: Google Workspace
• Special features: Easy collaboration, Google integration
• Free for anyone with a Google account
• Familiar interface
• Easy to share and collaborate
• Decent templates
• Somewhat basic in functionality
• Clunky for some users

When it comes to software, there’s “free to use,” and then there’s free. Most of the software on this list offers either a restricted free mode or a time-limited trial. Google Slides is actually free, fully free, for another with a Google account. And it holds its own, even compared to its premium competitors.

Google Slides feels like a simplified version of PowerPoint. It’s a little easier to learn the basics, but also offers fewer templates, screen transitions, and content. It also lacks a built-in asset library to fill dead space, though the program’s Google Drive integration makes it easy to add your own. Like most Google programs, it also supports add-ons that give it enhanced features, like the ability to solve equations within the slideshow.

If you’re looking to make an extremely sharp presentation, Google Slides will take a bit more effort than most. If you need to make a basic slideshow and you grew up on earlier versions of PowerPoint, you’ll feel right at home using Slides.

Q: What are the three most popular presentation software options?

Based on our research, the three most popular programs are Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Keynote, roughly in that order. PowerPoint is far more popular than the other two, though. All three are good options, depending on what you’re looking for. All things being equal, though, we recommend PowerPoint.

Q: How much does presentation software cost?

Generally, most of the programs listed here cost between $7 and $15 a month for their premium packages. However, Google Slides and Keynote are free, so we recommend those for customers on a budget.

Q: Is Canva better than PowerPoint?

Canva and PowerPoint are both great programs that offer about equal value. It’s much easier to create a beautiful, eye-catching presentation in Canva, but PowerPoint’s advanced features give you more options. If you need to make slick-looking professional presentations on a frequent basis, we recommend Canva for its superior ease-of-use.

Q: Does Adobe have presentation software?

Adobe had its own competitor to PowerPoint, Adobe Presenter. The company recently ended support for Presenter on June 1, 2022.

Final thoughts on the best presentation software

While everyone wants to use the best program for the job, the truth is that all presentation builders have a lot in common with each other. If you’re familiar with one, it often makes sense to stay put. Despite all the similarities, it can take some time to learn a new system. If you’re constrained and frustrated, or are using presentation software for the first time, you should consider a wide range of options beyond PowerPoint.

Though alternatives like Beautiful.ai, Canva, or (especially) Prezi cost a bit more, they each have strong features that may work better for your purposes. That said, sometimes the most popular presentation software options are the best. If you don’t have specific expectations or need to clear a high bar for design, PowerPoint and free options like Google Slides should work well, and have the benefit of wide adoption in corporate workplaces.

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23 open source audio-visual production tools

Internet Archive Book Images. Modified by Opensource.com. CC BY-SA 4.0

Open source is well established in cloud infrastructure, web hosting, embedded devices, and many other areas. Fewer people know that open source is a great option for producing professional-level audio-visual materials.

As a product owner and sometimes marketing support person, I produce a lot of content for end users: documentation, web articles, video tutorials, event booth materials, white papers, interviews, and more. I have found plenty of great open source software that helps me do my job producing audio, video, print, and screen graphics. There are a lot of reasons that people choose open source over proprietary options, and I've compiled this list of open source audio and video tools for people who:

• want to switch to GNU/Linux, but need to start slowly with cross-platform software on their regular operating system;
• are already open source enthusiasts, but are new to open source A/V software and want to know which options to trust;
• want to discover new tools to fuel their creativity and don't want to use the same approaches or software everyone else uses; or
• have some other reason to use open source A/V solutions (if this is you, share your reason in the comments).

Fortunately, there is a lot of open source software available for A/V creators, as well as hardware that supports those applications. All of the software on this list meets the following criteria:

• cross-platform
• open source (for software and drivers)
• actively maintained
• well documented and supported

I've divided this list into graphics, audio, video, and animation solutions. Note that the software applications in this article are not exact equivalents of well-known proprietary software, they'll require you to learn new applications, and you may need to modify your workflow, but learning new tools enables you to create differently.

I create a lot of graphics for print and web, including logos, banners, video titles, and mockups. Here are some of the open source applications I use, as well as the hardware I use with them.

1.  Inkscape (vector graphics) Inkscape is a good vector graphics editor for creating SVG and PDF files in the RGB color space. (It can create CMYK images, but that's not the main aim.) It's a lifesaver for manipulating SVG maps and charts for web applications; not only can you open files with the integrated XML editor, you can also see all of an object's parameters. One drawback: it is not well optimized on Mac. For examples, see Inkscape's gallery .

2.  GIMP (picture editor) GIMP is my favorite application to edit images, including manipulating color, cropping and resizing, and (especially) optimizing file size for the web (many of my Photoshop-using colleagues ask me to do that last step for them). You can also create and draw images from scratch, but GIMP is not my favorite tool for that. See GIMP Artists on DeviantArt for examples.

3.  Krita (digital painting) So you have this beautiful Wacom drawing tablet on your desk, and you want to try a true digital painting application? Krita is what you need to create beautiful drawings and paintings. See Krita's Gallery to see what I mean.

4.  Scribus (desktop publishing) You can use Scribus to create a complete document, or just to convert a PDF from Inkscape or Libre Office from RGB to CMYK. One feature I really like: You can simulate and check what people with visual disabilities will experience with a Scribus document. I count on Scribus when I send PDF files to a commercial printer. While printing companies may be used to files created with proprietary solutions like InDesign, if your Scribus file is done correctly, your printer won't have any issues. Free trick: The first time you send a file, don't tell the printer the name of the software you used to create it. See Made with Scribus for examples of documents created with this software.

5.  RawTherapee (RAW image photo development) RawTherapee is the only completely cross-platform alternative to Lightroom I know of. You can use your camera in RAW mode, and then use RawTherapee to "develop" your picture. It provides a very powerful engine and a non-destructive editor. For examples, see RawTherapee screenshots .

6.  LibreOffice Draw (desktop publishing) Although you may not think of LibreOffice Draw as a professional desktop publishing solution, it can save you in many situations; for example, if you are creating whitepapers, diagrams, or posters that other people (even those who don't know graphics software) can update later. Not only is it easy to use, it's also a great alternative to Impress or PowerPoint for creating interesting documents.

Graphics hardware

Graphics tablets Wacom tablets (and compatibles) are usually well supported on all operating systems.

Color calibration Color calibration products are available on all operating systems, including GNU/Linux. The Spyder products by Datacolor are well supported with applications for all platforms.

Scanners and printers Graphic artists need the colors they output (whether print or electronic) to be accurate. But devices that are truly cross-platform, with easy-to-install drivers for all platform, are not as common as you'd think. Your best choices are scanners that are compatible with TWAIN and printers that are compatible with Postscript. In my experience, professional-range printers and scanners from Epson and Xerox are less likely to have driver issues, and they always work out of the box, with beautiful and accurate colors.

There are plenty of open source audio software options for musicians, video makers, game makers, music publishers, and others. Here are the ones that I've used for content creation and audio recording.

7.  Ardour   (digital audio recording) For recording and editing audio, the best alternative to the professional Pro Tools music-creation software is, hands down, Ardour. It sounds great, the mixer section is complete and flexible, it supports your favorite plugins, and it makes it very easy to edit, listen, and compare your modifications. I use it a lot for audio recording or mixing sound on videos. It's not easy to find music recorded with Ardour, because musicians rarely credit the software they use. However, you can get an idea of its capabilities by looking at its features and screenshots .

(If you are looking for an "analog feeling" in term of sound and workflow, you can try Harrison Mixbus , which is not an open source project, but is heavily based on Ardour, with Harrison's analog console emulator. I really like to work with it and my customers like the sound. Mixbus is cross platform.)

8.  Audacity  (audio editing) Audacity is the "Swiss Army knife" of audio software. It's not perfect, but you can do almost everything with it. Plus it's very easy to use, and anyone can learn it in a few minutes. Like Ardour, it's hard to find work credited to Audacity, but you can find ways to use it on these screenshots .

9.  LMMS  (music production) LMMS, designed as an alternative to FL Studio, might not be as popular, but it is very complete and easy to use. You can use your favorite plugins, edit instruments using "piano roll" sequencing, play drum samples with a step sequencer, mix your tracks ... almost anything is possible. I use it to create audio loops for videos when I don't have the time to record musicians. See The Best of LMMS playlists for examples.

10.  Mixxx (DJ, music mixing) If you need powerful software to mix music and play DJ, Mixx is the one to use. It's compatible with most MIDI controllers, timecoded discs, and dedicated sound cards. You can manage your music library, add effects, and have fun. Take a look at the features to see how it works.

Audio interface hardware

While you can record audio with any computer's sound card, to record well , you need an audio interface—a specialized type of external sound card that records high-quality audio input. For cross-platform compatibility, most "USB Class Compliant" or "compatible with iOS" audio interface devices should work for MIDI or other audio. Below is a list of cross-platform devices I use and know well.

Behringer U-PHORIA UMC22 The UMC22 is the cheapest option you should consider. With less expensive options, the preamps are too noisy and the quality of the box is very low.

Presonus AudioBox USB The AudioBox USB is one of the first USB Class Compliant (and thereby cross-platform) recording systems out there. It is very robust and available on the second-hand market.

Focusrite Scarlett The Scarlett range is, in my opinion, the highest quality cross-platform sound card available. The various options range from devices with two to 18 input/outputs. You can find first-version models on the second-hand market, and the new second version offers better preamps and specs. I've worked a lot with the 2i2 model.

Arturia AudioFuse The AudioFuse allows you to plug in nearly anything, from a microphone to a vinyl disc player to various digital inputs. It provides both great sound and great design, and it's what I'm using the most now. It is cross-platform, but the configuration software is not yet available for GNU/Linux. It remembers my configuration even after I unplug it from my Windows PC, but really, Arturia, please be serious and make the software available for GNU/Linux.

MIDI controllers

A MIDI controller is a musical instrument—e.g., keyboards, drum pads, etc.—that allow you to control music software and hardware. Most of the recent USB MIDI controllers are cross-platform and compatible with the main software used to record and edit audio. Web-based tutorials will help you configure them for different software; although it may be harder to find info on GNU/Linux configurations, they will work. I've used many Akai and M-Audio devices without any issues. It's best to try a musical instrument before you buy, at least to listen to the sound quality or to touch the buttons.

Audio codecs

Audio codecs compress and decompress digital audio to deliver the best-quality audio at the smallest possible file size. Fortunately, the best codec for listening and streaming happens to be open source: FLAC . Ogg Vorbis is another open source audio codec worth checking out; it's far better than MP3 at the same bitrate. If you need to export audio in different file formats, I recommend always exporting and archiving audio at the best possible quality, then compressing a specific version if it's needed.

The impact of video in brand communications is significant. Even if you are not a video specialist, it's smart to learn the basics.

11.  VLC (video player and converter) Originally developed for media streaming, VLC is now known for its ability to read all video formats on all devices. It's very useful; for example, you can also use it to convert a video into another codec or container or to recover a broken video.

12.  OpenShot  (video editor) OpenShot is simple software that produces great results, especially for short videos. (It is a bit limited in terms of editing or improving the sound of a video, but it will do the job.) I especially like the tool to move, resize, or crop a clip; it's perfect to create intros and outros that you can export, then use in a more complex editor. You can see examples (and get more information) on OpenShot's website.

13.  Shotcut  (video editor) I think Shotcut is a bit more complete than OpenShot—it's a very good competitor to the basic editors in your operating system, and it supports 4K and professional codecs. Give it a try, I think you will love it. You can see examples in these video tutorials .

14.  Blender Velvets  (vdeo editing, compositing, effects) While the learning curve is not the lightest on this list, Blender Velvets is one of the most powerful solutions you will find. It is a collection of extensions and scripts, created by movie makers, that transform the Blender 3D creation software into a 2D video editor. While it's complexity means it's not my top choice for video editing, you can find plenty of tutorials on YouTube and other sites, and once you learn it, you can do everything with this software. Watch this tutorial video to see its functions and how it works.

15.  Natron (compositing) I don't use Natron, but I've gotten great feedback from people who do. It's an alternative to Adobe's After Effects, but works differently. To learn more, watch a few video tutorials, like these on  Natron's YouTube channel.

16.  OBS  (live editing, recording, and streaming) Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is the leading solution for recording or livestreaming e-sports and video games on YouTube or Twitch. I use it a lot to record users' screens, conferences, meetups, etc. For more information, see the tutorial I wrote for Opensource.com about recording live presentations, Part 1: Choosing your equipment and Part 2: Software setup .

Video hardware

First things first: You will need a powerful workstation with a fast hard drive and updated software and drivers.

Graphics processing unit (GPU) Some software on this list, including Blender and Shotcut, use OpenGL and hardware acceleration, which have high GPU demands. I recommend the most powerful GPU you can afford. I've had good experience with AMD and Nvidia, depending on the platform. Don't forget to install the latest drivers.

Hard drives In general, the faster and bigger the hard drive, the better it is for video. Don't forget to configure your software to use the right path.

Video capture hardware

• Blackmagic Design : Blackmagic provides very good, professional-grade video capture and playback hardware. Drivers are available for Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux (but not all distributions).
• Epiphan : Among Epiphan's professional USB video capture devices is a new USB Class Compliant model for HDMI and high screen resolutions. However, you can find the older VGA devices on the secondhand market, for which they continue to provide dedicated drivers for GNU/Linux and Windows.

Video codecs

Unfortunately, it is still difficult to work with open source codecs. For example, many cameras use proprietary codecs to record videos in H.264 and sound in AC3, in a format called AVCHD. Therefore, we have to be pragmatic and use what is available.

The good news is that the content industry is moving to open source codecs to avoid fees and to use open standards. For distribution and streaming, Google' s WebM is a good open source codec, and most video editors can export in that format. Also, GoPro's Cineform codec for very high resolution and 360° video is now open source. Hopefully more devices and vendors will use it soon.

2D and 3D animation

Animation is not my field of expertise, so I've asked my friends who are working on animated content, including movies and series for kids, for their recommendations to compile this list.

17.  Blender   (3D modeling and rendering) Blender is the top open source and cross-platform software for 3D modeling and rendering. You can do your entire project directly in Blender, or use it to create 3D effects for a movie or video. You will find a lot of video tutorials on the web, so even though it isn't simple software, it's very easy to get started. Blender is a very active project and regularly produces short movies to showcase the technology. You can see some of them on Blender Open Movies .

18.  Synfig Studio  (2D animation) The first time I used Synfig, it reminded me of the good, old Macromedia Flash editor. Since then, it has grown into a full-featured 2D animation studio. You can use it to produce promotional stories, commercials, presentations, or original intros, outros, and transitions for your videos, or even to work on full animated movies. See Synfig's portfolio for some examples.

19.  TupiTube (stop-motion, 2D animation) TupiTube is an excellent way to learn the basics of 2D animation. You can transform a set of drawings or other pictures into a video or create an animated GIF or small loops. It's quite simple software, but very complete. Check out TupiTube's YouTube channel for some tutorials and examples.

Animation uses the same hardware as graphic design, so look at the hardware list in the first section of this article for recommendations.

One additional note: You will need a powerful GPU for 3D modeling and rendering. The choices can be limited, depending on your platform or PC maker, but don't forget to install the latest drivers. Carefully choose your graphics card: they are expensive and critical for big 3D projects, particularly in the rendering step.

Linux options

If you are a GNU/Linux user, I have some more good options for you. They aren't fully cross-platform, but some of them have a Windows installer, and some can be installed on Mac with Macports.

20.  Kdenlive (video editor) With its last release (a few months ago), Kdenlive became my favorite video editor, especially when I work on a long video on my Linux machine. If you are a regular user of popular non-linear video editors, Kdenlive (which stands for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor) will be easy for you to use. It has good video and audio effects, is great when you need to work on details, and works on BSD and MacOS (although it's aimed at GNU/Linux) and is being ported to Windows.

21.  Darktable (RAW development) Darktable is a very complete alternative to DxO that is made by photographers for photographers. Some research projects are using it as a platform for development and testing of new image processing algorithms. It is a very active project, and I can't wait until it becomes truly cross-platform.

22.  MyPaint (digital painting) MyPaint is like a light table for digital painting. It works well with Wacom devices, and its brush engine is particularly appreciated, so GIMP developers are looking closely at it.

23.  Shutter (desktop screenshots) When I create tutorials, I use a lot of screenshots to illustrate them. My favorite screenshot tool for GNU/Linux is Shutter; actually, I can't find an equivalent in terms of features for Windows or Mac. One missing piece: I would like to see Shutter add a feature to create animated GIF screenshots over a few seconds.

I hope this has convinced you that open source software is an excellent, viable solution for A/V content producers. If you are using other open source software—or have advice about using cross-platform software and hardware—for audio and video projects, please share your ideas in the comments.

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Related content.

Best free presentation software of 2024

Find an alternative to PowerPoint

Best overall

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

• How we test

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best free presentation software of 2024 in full:

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

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

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

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

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

Read our full Prezi review .

• ^ Back to the top

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

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

Read our full Canva review .

3. LibreOffice

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

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

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

Read our full LibreOffice review .

4. Google Slides

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

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

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

Read our full Google Slides review .

5. WPS Office Free

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

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

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

Read our full WPS Office Free review .

We've also featured the best free office software .

Best free presentation software FAQs

Which alternative to powerpoint is best for you.

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

How we test the best free presentation software

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

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

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

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