There are hundreds of presentation software options available on the market today, and we know it’s hard to venture outside the comforts of PowerPoint. What if the software you’re immigrating to suddenly crashes? What if it does not live up to your expectations?
Luckily we’ve taken care of all the tedious tasks for you (which means testing over a dozen types of presentation software on the way).
Check out these types of presentation software below.
No matter what type of presentation you want, you’ll find your presentation platform soulmate here!
Overview
| Best value for money | AhaSlides (From $4.95) |
| Most intuitive and easy to use | ZohoShow, Haiku Deck |
| Best for education use | AhaSlides, Powtoon |
| Best for professional use | RELAYTO, SlideDog |
| Best for creative use | VideoScribe, Slides |
| Best-known nonlinear presentation software | Prezi |
Table of Contents
Start in seconds.
Get free templates for your next interactive presentation. Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!
🚀 Get templates for free
What is a Presentation Software?
Presentation software is any digital platform that helps elaborate and illustrate the presenter’s points through a sequence of visuals like graphics, texts, audio, or videos.
Each bit of presentation software is unique in its way, but all usually share three similar features:
- A slideshow system to show each idea consecutively.
- Slide customisation includes organising different clusters of texts, inserting images, choosing backgrounds or adding animation to the slides.
- A sharing option for the presenter to share the presentation with their colleagues.
Each bit of presentation software gives you different unique features, and we’ve classified them into the five types of presentation software below. Let’s dive in!
🎊 Tips: Use Interactive PowerPoint to enhance better engagement for your 2024 gatherings!
Best Interactive Presentation Software on The Market
An interactive presentation has elements the audience can interact with, such as polls, quizzes, word clouds, etc. It turns a passive, one-way experience into an authentic conversation with everyone involved.
Ready to boost audience engagement in your presentations? Here are a couple of interactive presentation software options for you to try for free.
#1 – AhaSlides
We’ve all attended at least one ultra-awkward presentation where we’ve secretly thought to ourselves – anywhere but this.
Where are the buzzing sounds of enthusiastic discussions, the “Ooh” and “Aah”, and the laughter from the audience to dissolve this awkwardness?
That’s where having interactive presentation software such as AhaSlides comes in handy. It engages the crowd with its free, feature-rich and action-packed content. You can add polls, fun quizzes, word clouds, and Q&A sessions to hype up your audience and have them interact with you directly.
✅ Pros:
- A library of pre-made templates that’s ready to use to save you time and effort.
- Quick and easy AI slide generator to make slides in an instant.
- You can import PowerPoint presentations/Google Slides and integrate AhaSlides with Microsoft Teams.
- The customer service is super responsive.
❌ Cons:
- When you import PowerPoint slides, the animation is lost.
- Since it’s a web-based software, the internet plays a crucial factor (test it out always!).
💰 Pricing:
- AhaSlides is free and lets you host up to 7 people.
- Essential plan: $23.95/$7.95/month (monthly/annually), host up to 50 live participants.
- Plus plan: $32.95/$10.95/month (monthly/annually), host up to 200 live participants.
- Pro plan: $49.95/$15.95/month (monthly/annually), host up to 10,000 live participants.
- Education plans and bulk purchases are available with better price offerings.
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators, trainers, and public speakers.
- Small and large businesses.
- Individuals who want to host quizzes but find software with annual plans too much.
#2 – Mentimeter
Mentimeter is another interactive presentation software that lets you connect with the audience and eliminates awkward silences through a bundle of polls, quizzes, or open-ended questions in real-time.
✅ Pros:
- It’s easy to get started right away.
- A handful of question types can be used in any scenario.
❌ Cons:
- They only let you pay annually (a bit on the pricier side).
- The free version is minimal. You can only create two questions in the presentation.
💰 Pricing:
- Mentimeter is free but doesn’t have priority support or supporting presentations imported from elsewhere.
- Pro plan: $11.99/month (pay annually).
- Pro plan: $24.99/month (revenue annually).
- The education plan is available.
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators, trainers, and public speakers.
- Small and large businesses.
Non-Linear Presentation Software
A non-linear presentation is one in which you don’t present the slides in a strict order. Instead, you can jump into any chosen fall within the deck.
This type of presentation software allows the presenter more freedom to cater content relevant to their audience and let their presentation flow naturally. Therefore the best-known nonlinear presentation software is:
#3 – RELAYTO
Organising and visualising content has never been easier with RELAYTO, a document experience platform that transforms your presentation into an immersing interactive website.
Get started by importing your supporting content (text, images, videos, audio). RELAYTO will piece everything together to form a complete presentation website for your purposes, whether a pitch or a marketing proposal.
✅ Pros:
- Its analytics feature, which analyses viewers’ clicks and interactions, provides real-time feedback on which content is engaging to the audience.
- You don’t have to create your presentation from scratch since you can upload existing presentations in PDF/PowerPoint format and the software will do the work for you.
❌ Cons:
- The embedded videos have length restrictions.
- You’ll be on a waitlist if you want to try RELAYTO’s free plan.
- It’s pricey for occasional uses.
💰 Pricing:
- RELAYTO is free with a limit of 5 experiences.
- Solo plan: $80/user/month (pay annually).
- Lite Team plan: $120/user/month (revenue annually).
- Pro Team plan: $200/user/month (revenue annually).
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Small and medium businesses.
#4 – Prezi
Widely known for its mind map structure, Prezi lets you work with an infinite canvas. You can alleviate the boredom of traditional presentations by panning between topics, zooming in on details, and pulling back to reveal context.
This mechanism helps the audience see the whole picture you’re referring to instead of going through each angle individually, which improves their understanding of the overall topic.
✅ Pros:
- Fluid animation and eye-catching presentation design.
- Can import PowerPoint presentations.
- Creative and diverse template library.
❌ Cons:
- It takes time to do creative projects.
- The platform sometimes freezes when you’re editing online.
- It can make your audience dizzy with its constant back-and-forth movements.
💰 Pricing:
- Prezi is free with a limit of 5 projects.
- Plus plan: $12/month.
- Premium plan: $16/month.
- The education plan is available.
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators.
- Small to large businesses.
🎊 Learn more: Top 5+ Prezi Alternatives | 2024 Reveal From AhaSlides
Visual Presentation Software
The visual presentation focuses on wowing the audience with aesthetically pleasing designs that look like they came straight from a professional designer’s hard drive.
Here are some pieces of visual presentation software that will bring your presentation up a notch. Get them on the screen, and nobody will have a clue if it’s been designed by an adept professional unless you tell them😉.
#5 – Slides
Slides is an interesting open-source presentation tool that allows great customisation assets for coders and developers. Its simple, drag-and-drop UI also helps people with no design knowledge to create presentations effortlessly.
✅ Pros:
- The fully open-source format allows rich customisation options using CSS.
- The Live Present Mode lets you control what viewers see on different devices.
- Allows you to display advanced math formulas (super helpful for math teachers).
❌ Cons:
- Limited templates can be a hassle if you want to create a quick presentation.
- If you’re on the free plan, you won’t be able to customise much or download the slides to see them offline.
- The website’s layout makes it hard to keep track of drops.
💰 Pricing:
- Slides is free with five presentations and a 250MB storage limit.
- Lite plan: $5/month (pay annually).
- Pro plan: $10/month (revenue annually).
- Team plan: $20/month (revenue annually).
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators.
- Developers with HTML, CSS and JavaScript knowledge.
#6 – Ludus
If Sketch and Keynote had a baby in the cloud, it would be Ludus (at least, that’s what the website claims). If you are familiar with the designer environment, then Ludus’s versatile functions will get you hooked. Edit and add any kind of content, collaborate with your colleagues and more; the possibilities are endless.
✅ Pros:
- It can integrate with many design assets from tools such as Figma or Adobe XD.
- The slides can be edited simultaneously with other people.
- You can copy and paste anything to your slides, like a YouTube video or tabular data from Google Sheets, and it will automatically transform it into a beautiful chart.
❌ Cons:
- We encountered a lot of bugs, such as an error that occurred when trying to undo or the presentation’s inability to save, which resulted in some work losses.
- Ludus has a learning curve that takes time to get to the top of if you’re not a pro at designing things.
💰 Pricing:
- You can try Ludus for free for 30 days.
- Ludus personal (1 to 15 people): $14.99.
- Ludus enterprise (over 16 people): Undisclosed.
- Ludus education: $4/month (pay annually).
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Designers.
- Educators.
#7 – Beautiful.ai
Beautiful.ai is one of the prime examples of presentation software with both the look and the functionality. Worrying that your slides would look mediocre will no longer be a problem because the tool will automatically apply the rule of design to organise your content in a captivating way.
✅ Pros:
- Clean and modern design templates let you show the presentation to your audience in minutes.
- You can use Beautiful.ai templates on PowerPoint with the Beautiful.ai add-in.
❌ Cons:
- It doesn’t display well on mobile devices.
- It has very limited features on the trial plan.
💰 Pricing:
- Beautiful.ai doesn’t have a free plan; however, it lets you try the Pro and Team plan for 14 days.
- For individuals: $12/month (pay annually).
- For teams: $40/month (pay annually).
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Startup founders are going for a pitch.
- Business teams with constrained time.
Simple Presentation Software
There’s beauty in simplicity, and that’s why many people crave presentation software that’s simple, intuitive, and goes straight to the point.
For these bits of simple presentation software, you don’t have to be tech-savvy or have guidelines to make a great presentation instantly. Check them out below👇
#8 – Zoho Show
Zoho Show is a counterpart to PowerPoint or Google Slides but has more prominent social-media-like features, such as live chat and commenting.
Besides that, Zoho Show has the most extensive list of cross-app integrations. You can add the presentation to your Apple and Android devices, insert illustrations from Humaaans, vector icons from Feather, and more.
✅ Pros:
- Varied professional templates for different industries.
- The live broadcast feature lets you present on the go.
- Zoho Show’s add-on market makes inserting various media types into your slides easily.
❌ Cons:
- You may experience the software’s crashing issue if your internet connection is unstable.
- Not many templates are available for the education segment.
💰 Pricing:
- Zoho Show is free.
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Small and medium businesses.
- Non-profit organisations.
#9 – Haiku Deck
Haiku Deck minimises your effort in creating presentations with its simple and neat-looking slide decks. If you don’t want flashy animations and would rather just get straight to the point, this is it!
✅ Pros:
- Available on the website and the iOS ecosystem.
- Enormous template library to choose from.
- Features are easy to use, even for first-timers.
❌ Cons:
- The free version doesn’t offer much. You can’t add audio or videos unless you pay for their plan.
- If you want a fully customisable presentation, Haiku Deck isn’t the one for you.
💰 Pricing:
- Haiku Deck offers a free plan but only allows you to create one presentation, which isn’t downloadable.
- Pro plan: $9.99/month (pay annually).
- Premium plan: $29.99/month (revenue annually).
- The education plan is available.
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators.
- Students.
Video Presentation Software
Video presentations are what you get when you want to make your presentation game more dynamic. They still involve slides but revolve very much around animation, which happens between images, text and other graphics.
Videos offer more advantages than traditional presentations. People will digest the information more efficiently in a video format compared to when they’re reading text. Plus, you can distribute your videos anytime, anywhere.
For fun games, try AhaSlides one of the top free alternatives to Kahoot!
#10 – Powtoon
Powtoon makes it easy to create a video presentation without prior video editing knowledge. Editing in Powtoon feels like editing a traditional presentation with a slide deck and other elements. There are dozens of animated objects, shapes and props you can bring in to enhance your message.
✅ Pros:
- Downloadable in multiple formats: MP4, PowerPoint, GIF, etc.
- Various templates and animation effects to make a quick video.
❌ Cons:
- You’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan to download the presentation as an MP4 file without the Powtoon trademark.
- It’s time-consuming to create a video.
💰 Pricing:
- Powtoon offers a free plan with minimal functions.
- Pro plan: $20/month (pay annually).
- Pro+ plan: $60/month (revenue annually).
- Agency plan: $100/month (revenue annually).
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators.
- Small and medium businesses.
#11 – VideoScribe
Explaining the theory and abstract concepts to your customers, colleagues, or students can be tricky, but VideoScribe will help lift that burden.
VideoScribe is a video editing application supporting whiteboard-style animations and presentations. You can place objects, insert text, and even create your own objects to put in the software’s whiteboard canvas, and it will generate hand-drawn style animations for you to use in your presentations.
✅ Pros:
- The drag-and-drop function is easy to get acquainted with, especially for beginners.
- You can use personal handwriting and drawings besides those available in the icon library.
- Multiple export options: MP4, GIF, MOV, PNG, and more.
❌ Cons:
- Some won’t show up if you have too many elements in the frame.
- There are not enough available quality SVG images.
💰 Pricing:
- VideoScribe offers a 7-day free trial.
- Monthly plan: $17.50/month.
- Annual plan: $96/year.
✌️ Ease of use: ⭐⭐⭐
👤 Perfect for:
- Educators.
- Small and medium businesses.
Comparison Table
Exhausted – yep, there are a lot of tools out there! Check out the tables below for a quick comparison of what might be best for you.
Best Value for Money
| ✅ AhaSlides | Slides |
| – The free plan offers unlimited use of almost all functions. – The paid plan starts from $7.95. – Unlimited AI requests. – Learn more on AhaSlides pricing now! | – The free plan has restricted use of functions. – The paid plan starts from $5. – 50 AI requests/month. |
Most intuitive and easy to use
| Zoho Show | Haiku Deck |
| ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Best for education use
| ✅ AhaSlides | Powtoon |
| – Education plan available. – Interactive classroom activities like quizzes, idea board live polls, brainstorming, etc. – Split the team easily with AhaSlides random team generator, also, gather feedback easier from different groups with rating scale. – Various education templates available. | – Education plan available. – Fun animation and cartoon characters to keep the students hooked visually. |
Best for professional business
| RELAYTO | SlideDog |
| – Oriented towards marketing, sales & communication professionals to create rich experiences for their customers. – Detailed analytics on the customer journey. | – Consolidate different kinds of content into one presentation. – Interactive activities such as polls and feedback are available. |
Best for creative use
| VideoScribe | Slides |
| – Can upload your hand-drawn images to illustrate further the points made in the presentation or vector graphics and PNGs for greater customisation. | – Great customisation for people who know HTML and CSS. – Can import different design assets from Adobe XD, Typekit and more. |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a non-linear presentation software?
Non-linear presentations allow you to navigate through the material without following a strict order, as presenters can jump over slides depending on what information is most relevant in different situations
Examples of Presentation Software?
Microsoft Powerpoint, Keynotes, AhaSlides, Mentimeter, Zoho Show, REPLAYTO…
Which is the best presentation software?
AhaSlides if you want presentation, survey and quiz functions all in one tool, Visme if you want an all-rounder static presentation, Prezi if you want an unique non-linear presentation style. There are many tools to try, so consider your budget and priorities.
