On average a presentation takes up to 20 minutes and experts say we make an impression within the first 30 seconds. That is why it’s important to “dress” our great product/idea with an equally exciting design.
Most often, presentations are cooked up by non-designers, which creates a specific need – for powerful presentation software, which can help communicate a message beautifully, effectively, and to suit any user’s skill level.
We hand-picked 15 of the best presentation software for 2021, which will help you create presentations online, share them, while shining in your best light. In the meanwhile, check out some useful ideas tips to spice up your presentations.
1. Powtoon
A web-based presentation tool, which means you can access your presentations wherever you are, with an internet connection. It is known for its animations, cartoons, and infographics, which help the user to create more interactive presentations and explainer-style videos.
Example by Focusky
Best Features: Very interactive; you can create a unique to your story by combining different “frames” (slides); create your own animations within the presentation
Price: Free, but heavily subscription-based
Learning curve: Very intuitive, nicely organized by categories, but it would require some time to learn the animation controls
Available for: Online
Perfect for: Marketing and education
To summarize, this presentation tool is best for marketers and education, where the creator can get the most out of the cool animation and cartoons available. In the last years, there is an increased interest in Powtoon and RenderForest and we expect that more and more people will use them in 2021. No surprise – if you look at our article about Graphic Design Trends in 2022, everything is moving towards animation, cool 3D-s, cartoons, and illustrations – and these are all things that this software can offer for your presentation.
2. Prezi
Prezi is an online presentation software, which resembles a mind map. In comparison, PowerPoint offers a linear way of presenting, whereas Prezi allows you to better show relationships between different elements of your presentation, show details, zoom in and zoom out and show an overall view of your topic. Compared to PowerPoint is more interactive, but with fewer functionalities and a choice of templates.
Example by PreziBase
Best Features: Interactive presentations and interesting transitions, zoom in/out details
Price: The very basic features are free, but most of the interesting ones are paid, starting from $3/month and reaching up to $59/month. They offer a free trial.
Learning curve: it requires learning and going through a lot of menus and functionalities, similar to PowerPoint
Available for: Online / Limited use for iOS and Android (only viewing, not creating and editing)
Perfect for: teachers, businesses, more experienced designers, and specific presentations needs, but not recommended for newbies
Prezi is best in showing relationships between different parts of your presentations. There are some challenges in editing, and viewing across devices and its best features are paid for. We recommend it for quick, mind-map-like presentations without the need for ultra-special design.
3. RenderForest Presentation Maker
RenderForest is an online presentation tool, which is famous for its explainer style and whiteboard animations. The presentation templates often offer various motion/video backgrounds, which helps to grab your audience’s attention. Currently, the company is working on releasing its Graphic Design Software, which will allow users to create printables and beautiful designs for social media. This shows that RenderForest’s team knows the market well and does its best to cater to its needs!
Example by Renderforest
Best Features: Video holders with text on shapes, cool transitions
Price: There is a free version, the paid ones start at $20.34 per user/month
Learning curve: Relatively easy to use, the simple interface helps the user
Available for: Online / iOS / Android
Perfect for: Education and business
Although not one of the cheapest solutions, it allows you to create engaging and interactive presentations with lots of cool animations. That makes RenderForest a great choice for more educational and marketing explainer-type videos/presentations.
4. Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a very interesting online presentation software. It allows your audience to engage with your presentation in real-time and you can create polls, ask questions, which are then displayed to your presentation. The answers from the audience remain anonymous so people are even more encouraged to participate.
Example by Mentimeter
Best Features: Launch live, interactive polls, surveys, quizzes and create things like word clouds in real-time
Price: It has a free version, but the paid plans offer most of the attractive features – the basic plan costs $9.99 per user/month and the more advanced plan is $24.99 per user/month
Learning curve: Easy to use; might need to explain to a less tech-savvy audience how to connect to your presentation
Available for: Online / Android / iOS
Perfect for: Educators, speakers, business and competitions
An excellent choice for educators, speakers, and businesses who want to engage the audience in real-time and display the results immediately. Clean, simple designs, that help you focus on the content.
5. Libre Office Impress
Libre Office is free presentation software, an open-source alternative to PowerPoint. As you can expect from a free product, it offers only the main features of its “big brother”, but it’s a good solution for people used to Microsoft’s productivity suite. The interface is very similar to PowerPoint, which again makes it comfortable to use for a certain audience. Users who need collaboration on presentations, clean interface, and more creative design solutions should steer away from this free presentation software because it will simply not cover their needs.
Example by Theodoros Bousios
Best Features: Free, compatible with older versions (Windows XP for example)
Price: Free
Learning curve: It will take some time to go through all the options and to get familiar with the interface;
Available for: Windows / macOS / Linux / Android / iOS.
Perfect for: people who want to use a free product and people with older operation systems
To summarize, Libre is free, compatible with older versions, it can cover your basic needs for a presentation, but the options are too many and available templates too little.
6. Zoho Show
Zoho Show is also an online presentation software, which has a very friendly user interface and great collaboration features. There are many functionalities, which help you create a beautiful design, but require some time and design knowledge to get it right. The premade templates are limited and this presentation software needs an internet connection to be able to edit and present.
Image by Zoho
Best Features: Live broadcasting a presentation with live chat and commenting
Price: Zoho Show is free for personal use. For business users, Zoho Show is included in the Zoho Docs enterprise pricing packages – €5 or €8 per user/month
Learning curve:
Available for: Online / Android / iOS
Perfect for: non-profits, start-ups, personal use, teachers
To summarize, Zoho offers great collaboration features, but you need a connection to edit and present. It is suitable for quick, non-pretentious presentations, where you need some kind of collaboration.
7. ClearSlide Presenter
ClearSlide is a sales engagement platform, including an online presentation tool. Another online tool – SlideRocket, was acquired by ClearSlide and one of the differences is that ClearSlide is more costly and targeted at larger businesses. It’s a great platform for very specific needs – collaborating between sales and marketing teams, to achieve the company’s goals. It’s clear even by the interface:
Image by ClearSlide
Best Features: Analytics for costumers’ engagement, video conferencing, screen sharing
Price: They offer a free trial and you can see more about the payment plans here.
Learning curve: Clear and simple interface, but it requires some time to get used to the tools
Available for: Online
Perfect for: Sales/business, managers (for coaching); not suitable for newbies, teachers, students
To summarize, ClearSide is perfect for presenting sales pitch, graphics, collaborate in larger teams. It is somehow restrictive for a non-designer because the templates are specific.
8. Piktochart
Piktochart allows you to make infographics, presentations, and printables quickly. Primarily known for its easy customizable infographics, Piktochart also has simple presentation templates and the company is constantly trying to update its library.
Example by Piktochart Knowledge Base
Best Features: Turning data-heavy content into simple visuals; nice transitions between slides
Price: There is a free version and a paid one, starting at $29 per user/month. They offer a free trial.
Learning curve: It requires time to get used to the options available and to navigate through
Available for: Online
Perfect for: Designers, teachers; it does not offer collaboration options, which might be needed by teams, students, etc.
Compared to other online presentation software is a bit costly and we could still ask a bit more from the presentation templates. We’d recommend it to someone who often uses infographics and wants to use a single platform to combine the infographics with a presentation. But why not check our free infographics as well?
9. Slides
Slides is online presentation software, initially aimed at developers and covering their presentation needs. Thus said, it does not offer offline editing, but you can present offline, after exporting your presentation.
Best Features: It allows you to use your phone as a remote control; Live Present Mode allows you to control what your audience sees; drop in code, iframes, and SVGs with ease.
Price: Free, with paid plans starting at $7.00/month and $14-$18/month for pro and team packages. They offer a free trial.
Learning curve: friendly interface, but too many functions and options, which might overwhelm the average user and beginner
Available for: Online
Perfect for: developers, designers, a little bit too specific for newbies
To summarize, it’s a very cool tool, giving you complete design freedom, but that is also why we do not recommend it to teachers, non-designers, or marketers. Developers and design gurus will love it.
10. Canva
Canva is a web-based solution that started with a mission – to make beautiful designed content available to everyone. The whole platform is organized so that a person without any prior design knowledge can easily create graphs, images, and presentations to impress. Although it is not the best tool for data visualization, it scores high in any other category. Needless to say, it has become a popular choice amongst non-designers.
Image by Iconfinder
Best Features: Plenty of beautiful templates to choose from and Canva school has plenty of tutorials and tips for free. It offers more free functionalities compared to other competitors.
Price: Free, the offer different subscription plans, starting at $9.95 per user/month
Learning curve: Very easy to use, most of the actions can be performed by drag-and-drop
Available for: Online / iOS / Android
Perfect for: newbies, marketers (who need a unified look across all their social media), non-profits, and teachers
Canva is becoming one of the most popular tools amongst non-designers for creating beautiful unified content. You can create entire presentations, flyers, and other materials with a single drag and drop.
11. Slidebean
Slidebean is the go-to online presentation software for last-minute projects, that look original and professional. Slidebean offers clean and easy-to-use templates and keeps track of your audience’s engagement.
Source Slidebean
Best Features: It allows you to arrange your content with the help of AI, which saves time creating a beautiful layout. You just pick a template, upload content, and let the AI offer you a nice layout. Premade animations, effects, and alignments are automatically applied to your content and create a cohesive look.
Price: Free, paid versions starting from $8/month
Learning curve: very easy to use since everything is made to fit the premade templates
Available for: Windows / Mac / Android / iOS
Perfect for: financial, academic, pitch, marketing, sales; everything quick with a clear structure
To summarize, if you are in a hurry, Slidebean will offer several layouts for your slides and speed up the process of creation. The platform targets primarily sales, marketing, and financial fields, and the available templates reflect that.
12. Google Slides
Google Slides is part of the G Suite business application. Its popularity has increased in the last years since it’s a web-based platform, allowing you to store, edit, and share your presentation, without the need of installing presentation software on your computer. All you need is a Google account and you are good to go.
Image by G Suite Updates blog
Best Features: It’s free for personal use, and offers great paid features for business – for example, seamless collaboration and commenting on a presentation, converting other presentations to Google Slides. Some other great features are the wide variety of fonts available (GoogleFonts, not need installing), easy embedding, plus it’s super intuitive and easy to use!
Price: It’s free for individual use. For business use, the price starts at $5/user/month and plans of $10 and $25/user/month, for unlimited cloud storage and extra features
Learning curve: Simple interface, but it will require some time to pick up. Similar to PowerPoint, only a bit lighter.
Available for: Windows / Mac / Online
Perfect for: businesses, freelancers, who need a user-friendly app with elementary features; great for collaborating teams, not so perfect for complex designs and tools, required by big enterprises
Perfect for personal use, well synchronized across different devices, similar to PowerPoint. Maybe you are a teacher and you like GoogleSlides because it is free and easy to use? Well, we’ve gathered some awesome FREE GoogleSlides and PowerPoint templates, specially made for education needs.
If you need something along the lines of PowerPoint but need the option for collaboration – a paid plan for GoogleSlides is your go-to choice.
13. Keynote
Keynote is an Apple product, very similar to Google Slides. All you need to do is create an iCloud account (similar to a Google account) and start using Keynote from there. Running Keynote on Windows also requires an internet connection and a modern browser. The latest version can also import and export PowerPoint formats if needed. All this sends Keynote higher in the list regarding the accessibility and shareability of this presentation software.
Image by Envato tuts+
Best Features: Simplicity of design, great drag and drop functions, polished transitions and animations, easy image editing/cropping; works great with multimedia; design templates with better aesthetic than an average slide deck;
Price: Free for macOS and iOS
Learning curve: Pretty easy to use for Mac users, a bit of learning curve for users, having experience with other software.
Available for: Mac / Windows / Online
Perfect for: businesses, marketers, people with not much of a design experience
Bottom line, if you are a Mac user, you love the sleek design and you are looking for cool aesthetics – Keynote is simple to use and free, why not use it?
14. Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is a web and mobile-based media creation application, which helps you create social graphics, short videos, and web pages. What is immediately noticeable is the clean, crisp, simple, and modern designs, which focus you on the content. If you are looking for a funky, ornate design – Adobe Spark is not the right pick for you.
Example by Cikeys
Best Features: Beautiful templates, user-friendly interface, step-by-step creation, you can add audio to your slides (narrating)
Price: There is a free version, the paid on starts at $9.79. The best templates, as with the competitors, are paid. They do not offer a free trial.
Learning curve: Easy to use
Available for: Online / iOS / Android
Perfect for: quick presentations, teachers, basic presentations without jamming them with too much cool stuff.
Adobe Spark eliminates the cluster of design options and leads you step-by-step in creating elegant, simple presentations. Ideal for basic presentations, not the best for sales and marketing.
15. PowerPoint
PowerPoint certainly is a “classic” – it’s has been the most popular tool for creating presentations so far. What first started as a component of the Microsoft Office suite, now has improved shareability and accessibility. It can be used on the web (as part of Office on the web), works with Android, and iOS, and there is a Mobile app, as well as presentation software for mac.
Example by Abris DC
Best Features: Many people are familiar with the software, a wide variety of templates; improved accessibility across platforms; extensive tools and options
Price: If you want to enjoy the full features of PowerPoint, you’ll need to subscribe to Microsoft 365 – they have payment plans for personal or business use. The price for personal use starts at $5.99/month or $59.99/year, and business plans start at $12.50 per user/month with an annual commitment. You can find more information here. The mobile applications are completely free to use, of course with some limitations. You can compare the available features across different platforms here.
Learning curve: Due to the variety of options and the complexity of the menus, it might take some time to master all of its features. Something that could take a lot of time is editing the text, arranging the visuals, and picking the right transitions – overall, is time-consuming. Still, the interface remained easy to navigate over time and if you trust your design sense, you can achieve satisfying results.
Available for: Windows / Mac / Online
Perfect for: business, medical, accounting and students; creating concise presentations; but not so suitable for teachers, educators, start-ups and marketers who want to create more interactive and story-based presentations.
To this date, PowerPoint is keeping the lead as the most popular tool for creating presentations. Some of the downsides are that sometimes it can be time-consuming to come up with a good design and PP doesn’t offer collaboration tools and compared to other platforms. But we have a solution for at least one of your problems – we’ve selected 31 Modern PowerPoint templates to set the right tone for your presentation.
We made a quick summary for you…
Ok, not that we’ve looked at the 15 best presentation software for 2021, we decided to go one step further and compare them by price and popularity. Let’s have a look first at the new-comers:
As you can see, the leaders from the uprising platforms are Canva and Mentimeter, with relatively low prices and with huge success amongst users. Powtoon, Piktochart, and Renderforest are a bit costly, but they are popular since they offer a lot of animation and interactive elements. Hey, but maybe some of the other tools are right for you? We encourage you to go on their websites, contact their support team, and see what they have to offer.
Then, let’s see how the veterans are ranking:
It’s no surprise that PowerPoint and Google Slides are at the top – people are used to their products, have familiar interfaces, and offer a lot of functionalities at a good price. Although, for quick, unpretentious results, their competitors are a very attractive solution.
Final words
We can conclude that there are many useful tools to help you create beautiful presentations. Some of them are well-known and have been here for a while, while others are uprising… No matter the case, we notice a trend for presentation tools catering not only to the designers’ needs but also to the newbies, marketers, and teachers. That way, enabling everyone to create stunning presentations in no time and share them easily.
We hope this presentation software list shed some light on different options out there and that we helped you evaluate quickly what would work for your situation best.
You may also be interested in these related articles:
- 12 PowerPoint Presentation Tips To Dramatically Boost Your Efficiency
- 35 Free Google Slides Infographic Templates to Grab Now
- 23 Online Collaboration Tools for Your Remote Team
