powerpoint online similar

• Editor's Choice: Tech Gifts for Mom
• Amazon Prime Tech Deals!

The 8 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives

Professional results for tight budgets

• Swansea University, Staffordshire University

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great tool for creating professional-looking slideshows and presentations. However, the home version requires a Microsoft 365 subscription, and the free mobile app locks some features behind the sub as well. Fortunately, there are plenty of free PowerPoint software alternatives out there. Here's a look at some of the best options and how they compare to PowerPoint. 

Best Direct PowerPoint Replacement: Google Slides

Very similar to PowerPoint.

Free to use. 

Compatible with PowerPoint.

An internet connection is strongly recommended. 

Where there's a need for an app, Google seems to have it covered. Google Slides is its PowerPoint equivalent and it's a lot like Microsoft's app. Very simple to use and offering full compatible with the alternative, you can access Google Slides via your browser and easily create custom presentations with audio and your own images, all entirely for free. It also offers great live collaboration features for teamwork purposes.

The only minor downside is you need an internet connection to at least get started but the service does also work offline with presentations syncing once you're back online.

Best for Designers: Prezi

Video editing included.

Can easily make data visualizations. 

Stylish user interface.

Free option is pretty basic.

No support.

Presentations viewable by all.

Prezi is a great option for designers who have a vision but aren't technically proficient at achieving it. Its simple drag and drop interface makes it a breeze to organize your presentation just how you want it. Backed up with other Prezi apps that mean you can create videos or more stylish data visualizations than simple graphs, it's ideal for industries that are more visual than others. A series of pre-made templates makes it all the more attractive. 

Prezi isn't as free as it seems though. To get the full wealth of features like advanced image editing, offline access, and narration, you'll need to pay a subscription fee.

Best for Quick Results: Zoho Show

A theme for every occasion.

Quick to create something.

Intuitive interface.

Need to be online to use it.

Simple to use yet highly effective is the sweet spot for quick results, and that's certainly the case with Zoho Show. You might need to be online to use it, but it's worth the connection with an intuitive user interface that adapts to what you need to do. You can easily embed videos, tweets, and images into your presentations with some neat transition effects making things more interesting. 

Collaboration tools further sweeten the deal with annotation features meaning you can work together well as a team and fast.

Best for Animations: Powtoon

Great animation tools.

Easy to use.

Can export to social media platforms.

Branding applied on free presentations.

More about animations than slideshows. 

PowToon tackles PowerPoint presentations from a slightly different angle than a lot of its competitors. It's primarily great for creating full animations and videos rather than presentations that you would click through and present yourself. That lends itself perfectly to the internet which is why it's so useful that you can export your presentations to various forms of social media. 

With a drag and drop template, you can create something within about 20 minutes from your browser. The free version bundles in branding logos so viewers will always know you've used PowToon to create them but that's a small price to pay for an otherwise very accessible and simple to use piece of software. 

Best for Mass Branding: Renderforest

Plenty of options for expanding branding.

300MB cloud storage for free.

Unlimited exports.

Exports can be low in quality.

Content is watermarked.

RenderForest thinks of itself as more than just a PowerPoint alternative. It tackles everything you might need from creating logos to designing promo videos, music visualizations, landing pages, and websites. That's on top of its extensive animations and intro creation. That might sound intimidating but the service keeps things simple, so it won't take you long to mock something up and develop it.

Stick to the free version and there are some restrictions such as branding on your videos, lower quality logos, and so forth, but it's a solid start for an otherwise entirely free service. In particular, if you just need to concoct a quick 3-minute video for a presentation, RenderForest has you covered.

Best for Non-Designers: Visme

Plenty of templates to choose from.

Can set up five projects at once.

Charts and widgets support.

Limited cloud storage.

Visme branding on free plan.

Been asked to make a presentation and you don't know where to start? Visme is perfect for those that aren't well versed with graphics as it offers an extensive template library. The free plan limits your options a little but there are still some decent choices here. In addition, the service provides cool ways to make stats and data look exciting thanks to chart and widget support. It's all done through a simple drag and drop interface too that makes it super simple to add video and embed other content. 

Just bear in mind that storage options are a little limited and everything on the free plan will contain Visme branding. 

Best for Office Replacement: LibreOffice Impress

Full program rather than browser-based.

Extensive support. 

Similar experience to Microsoft Office.

Requires installation. 

Not quite as intuitive as alternatives.

LibreOffice is a popular free alternative to Microsoft Office, so it makes sense to use LibreOffice Impress if you want the closest experience to Microsoft's package. Unlike most of the others here, you need to install LibreOffice on your PC or Mac which means it's no good for Chromebooks or moving between different systems. However, in exchange, you get an intuitive experience that makes it simple to create slideshows, whether you're handing them out to a class or conference afterwards, or simply projecting them on screen. 

Bear in mind you have to seek out templates yourself though which may be off-putting for the least technically minded user out there. 

Download for:

Best for Apple Users: Keynote

Simple to use. 

Apple Pencil support. 

Cloud based as well as app based.

App is only on Apple devices.

Keynote is Apple's direct competitor to Microsoft PowerPoint and it's a great alternative, especially if you're a Mac user. With app support for iOS and Mac, it takes seconds to get started. Alternatively, PC users can use Keynote via the iCloud website and easily work across multiple devices. 

One of the best features is the ability to use the Apple Pencil on an iPad to create diagrams or illustrations making it great for skilled artists. As well as that, Apple provides plenty of convenient templates for personal and professional projects. 

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

• Best Free Family Feud PowerPoint Templates
• The 8 Best Gmail Alternatives of 2024
• The Best Free Productivity Apps for the iPad
• The 8 Best Spotify Alternatives in 2024
• The 8 Best Slideshow Apps of 2024
• 19 Best Free Cloud Storage Services for Backup in 2024
• 10 Free PowerPoint Game Templates
• The 8 Best Android Productivity Apps of 2024
• The 8 Best Google Drive Add-ons for 2024
• 5 Best Free Online Word Processors for 2024
• How to Create a Microsoft Sway Presentation
• The 10 Best Note Taking Apps of 2024
• The Best Free Skype Alternatives of 2024
• The 8 Best Video Mergers of 2024
• 5 Best Free PowerPoint Background Sites
• The 8 Best iPad Pro Apps of 2024

The 7 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives for Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint is great, but what if you can't afford it? Here are the best free PowerPoint alternatives for presentations.

Microsoft PowerPoint has been around for a long while and so far it has served users well. However, because it's a paid program, not everyone can afford it.

Thankfully, there are many options available for users who want the functionality of Microsoft PowerPoint in a free-to-use package. In fact, some of them don't even require any downloads and are completely web-based.

1. Google Slides

By far the most popular PowerPoint alternative out there, Google Slides shines when it comes to collaboration. Multiple people can work simultaneously on a presentation and add new slides.

This is further strengthened by its availability. Google Slides works on your web browser and has apps for both iOS and Android.

Additionally, Google Slides keeps a record of all the changes users have made to a presentation, and you can easily restore your slideshow to a previous version. While anyone with a Gmail account can use Google Slides, G Suite users get added data protection.

Compared to PowerPoint, the number of templates, animation forms, and fonts is somewhat lacking. However, businesses tend to overlook these shortcomings on a day-to-day basis.

While Canva is primarily known as a photo editor and design tool, it is also a competent MS PowerPoint alternative.

One of Canva's main strengths is its ease of use. There are many beginner tutorial videos on the website if users do not understand something. Complete beginners can easily navigate through the minimalistic interface.

With the free version of Canva, you get access to over 8000+ presentation templates that exponentially speed up your workflow. Additionally, Canva still remains one of the easiest services to create infographics and charts in.

The only limiting thing with Canva is that it offers a basic set of tools and transitions at users' disposal. It's apparent that the company places more focus on photo editing and design aspect than anything else.

The Prezi presentation format is unique in the way that it lets you view slides. Instead of addressing multiple elements at once, Prezi gives viewers a single canvas that allows them to zoom in on different presentation parts. This provides a much more immersive experience.

Similar to Google Slides, Prezi supports the real-time collaboration of up to 10 users. Users can also add comments to indicate changes or report missing information. Prezi works on any modern web browser, and there are Android and iOS apps available as well.

Related: Powerful Google Chrome PDF Extensions and Apps

The Prezi software also has an analytics feature that helps users optimize their presentation by showing them which slides were the most viewed as well as which ones were skipped.

Even though the basic version of Prezi is free to use, it doesn't allow users to control the privacy of their presentation, which could be a dealbreaker for many. Additionally, due to the way Prezi works, there is a steep learning curve associated with it.

4. WPS Office Free

WPS Office is the closest alternative to PowerPoint when it comes to functionality and user interface. Plus, unlike the other web-based services on this list, you don't always need an active internet connection to use it.

With its complete support for PowerPoint files, users can edit existing PowerPoint documents with ease in WPS Office. They can also embed videos and animate individual objects, just like in Microsoft PowerPoint. It also offers many templates, so users can pick their favorite.

However, users should keep in mind that while the software is free, it is supported by ads, which may be a bit intrusive at times. In addition to this, collaboration is less straightforward than with Google Slides.

WPS Office is available across all major platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux. iOS, and Android. There is a web-based version available as well. Alternatively, you can check out this handy guide to smoothen your transition to WPS Office from Microsoft .

Xtensio is one of the best options for business users. It has many templates available regarding various organization sections, such as marketing, UX design, etc.

With Xtensio's easy-to-use interface, even newbies can create professional-looking reports and presentations. Additionally, they offer even greater flexibility in terms of design. You can edit each object in a template to suit your specific needs.

But it does have some shortcomings. For one thing, users cannot export their presentations in PowerPoint format. Additionally, the free version supports only one user at a time with a storage space of 1MB.

6. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is open-source presentation software that does everything PowerPoint can do. Although it lacks functionality such as OneDrive Integration, its PowerPoint-like functionality more than makes up for it.

LibreOffice has its share of useful features, such as the ability to import Keynote files. In addition, LibreOffice has a vast collection of free templates that users can use to create their presentations.

If that's not enough, you can download additional templates from LibreOffice's online repository. LibreOffice is available across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

7. Zoho Show

There are several reasons to use Zoho Show for your next presentation. It's a great presentation tool that's similar to Google Slides, but even better. Users can also import and edit all their PowerPoint files in the online tool.

Users can create tables, infographics, and data charts within Zoho Show itself. In addition to this, the service also has in-built Google Image Search functionality that lets you search and insert images quickly.

Related: Tools to Give an Online Presentation From Anywhere

Additionally, Zoho Show supports collaboration in real-time and multiple users can edit presentations. Although there's not much to complain about in Zoho Show, many users would like to have more options when it comes to templates and animations.

Worthy PowerPoint Alternatives

Essentially, all these tools and services function the same way as PowerPoint without the cost. Furthermore, the web-based alternatives are more advanced such as automatic saving and cloud storage.

Despite this, PowerPoint remains the front-runner when it comes to presentation software. As such, it is important for users to know how to make the best out of its features.

10 PowerPoint Online Alternatives and Software for Outstanding Presentations

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

By Al Boicheva

in Insights

7 years ago

Reading time: 4 min

Viewed 47,909 times

Spread the word about this article:

Why talk about PowerPoint online alternatives?   There is a big number of occasions calling you to put your great ideas into a memorable presentation. You want to make it perfect, unique and crafted with a beautiful yet clean design.

That’s normal as PowerPoint has gone a long way in professional settings for more than a decade.

On one hand, it’s standard, it’s easy to use and it’s an undeniable classic. On the other, it has a linear nature that forces the speaker to reduce complex subjects into simple bullets. It’s also quite pricey and conventional.

In that case, you might be looking for more affordable, different and easy to use PowerPoint online alternatives.

There is a lot of presentation software for you to choose from.

According to your needs, some apps offer real-time collaboration, non-linear style, mobile editing, auto slides, beautiful templates, live-sharing and much more. Just think of the goals your presentation needs to achieve and let’s begin.

We selected the 10 best PowerPoint Online alternatives and software to aid your presentation crafting (as well as some honorable mentions).

10. libreoffice impress  .

Same as LibreOffice is the free and high-quality answer to Microsoft Office, LibreOffice Impress is respectively the PowerPoint alternative presentation software. The program even looks similar in terms of interface, tools, and functionality and supports all PowerPoint formats. As we already established, Impress might be the ultimate alternative if you need a similar tool for slideshows and presentations.

• Price : Free
•  very similar to PowerPoint
• free software
• easy-to-use drawing and diagramming tools
• 2D and 3D images from text
• supports multiple monitors 
• only 10 template presentation backgrounds
• inability to auto-advance existing .pptx files
• lack of new creative designs
• Ideal for: students, education purposes, personal use

For all Apple users there, Keynote is the best PowerPoint alternative. It exists as stand- alone product as well as a part of the full iWork set. It’s incredibly easy to learn and navigate and it offers numerous beautiful templates to incorporate into your presentations without putting much effort.

• Price : $19.99 or free with new Macs
• PowerPoint compatible allows the same features
• easy to learn and use, simplistic menus
• user- friendly sophisticated interface
• allows the creation of interactive animated charts
• more than 30 cinematic effects for objects
• can be accessed and edited on mobile devices
• collaborative
• free with new Macs
• allows to project the presentation via video out
• only available for Macs
• no slide library
• Ideal for: Mac users, companies, personal use

This alternative is directed towards the most creative presenters who want to fully customize their own slide themes. The web designers would love this one.  Using a handful of fonts, shapes transition animation, and modern color sets, you can craft your own unique designs and if you want to go even further, the presentation software includes pro plan for custom CSS and HTML.

• Price :  $7/month Lite, $14/month Pro(25% annual discount)
• user friendly
• access to revision history
• displaying math formulas
• editable HTML
• includes tutorial
• full editing capability
• cloud- based
• only linear style presentations
• limited templates
• Ideal for: students, educational purposes, designers, personal use

7. Slidebean

Similar to what you get with Haiku Deck and its AI tool, Slidebean is another PowerPoint alternative which grants you an automatization in terms of design. If you don’t have the time, Slidebean will create and design the slides itself allowing you to concentrate solely on the presentation content. Although it doesn’t offer much functionality, it’s quick to craft your presentation and it sports plenty of templates to suit your project. 

• Price : Free, $29/month All-Features
• access to icons and gallery within the software
• chat feature
• allows access to viewers’ actions
• easy to use
• automatic slide-creation
• no animation
• very limited customization
• Ideal for:   students, educational purposes, designers, personal use

6. Google Slides

The Google cloud-based presentation tool is quick to access in your personal Google account. Highly collaborative as every other Google tool, Slides offers real-time edits, a built-in IM function for chatting during group projects, and full access to all revisions made by your team members. The software is free and comes with mobile apps for your Android or iOS device. All you need is an Internet connection.

• Price : Free. Extra storage from $1.99/month for 100GB
• compatible with PowerPoint
• real- time collaboration
• beginner- friendly
• not suitable for heavily animated presentations
• requires Google account
• Ideal for: students, educational purposes, companies, personal use

5. Haiku Deck

The mobile alternative to PowerPoint has gained lots of popularity thanks to its strong visuals and elegant looks. The cloud-based presentation software comes with over 40 million stock photos and its signature artificial intelligence tool which has the ability to build the slides and choose images for you. The so-called Haiku Deck Zuru AI saves time and it’s perfect if you have to craft a last-minute presentation.

• Price : $19.99/month Pro, $29.99/month Premium
• over 40 million stock photos
• artificial intelligence tool to save time
• no offline work
• made mainly for image-based slide decks
• Ideal for: students, education purposes, traveling salesmen

4. Zoho Show

Another popular PowerPoint alternative is Zoho Show. As a part of the suite of the operating system for business Zoho, this presentation software helps you make and access your projects from any device connected to the Internet. Its functions vary from designing great-looking presentations, to document managing, collaboration, and sharing. The best part is the broadcast feature that allows you to remotely show your presentations live on the web.

• Price : Free; extra storage and features from $5/month
• appealing visuals
• embed YouTube videos and live tweets
• broadcast feature
• collaborative tools
• supports multiple types of files
• most similar to PowerPoint
• comes with a free- option
• no distorted and misaligned images
• limited animations or transitions to choose from
• Ideal for: students, companies, personal use

3. Slidedog

Slidedog is the most alternative of the PowerPoint Online alternatives. It’s the most untraditional presentation software out there as it serves the role of a multimedia playlist allowing you to move around and play all kinds of media files and documents seamlessly. The software gives you the position of a DJ switching smoothly and easily from slide decks to a website, from a video to a document in the middle of your presentation as you please.

• Price : Free, $19.99/month, $99.99/year (with 20% renewal discount), $299.99 one-off purchase
• multimedia presentation tool combining slide decks, presentations, videos, PDFs and etc
• real-time share
• features a companion remote mobile device app
• allows remote control from a smartphone, tablet, and PC
• featured live chat
• live polls during the presentation
• smooth transitions
• can’t design slide content
• can’t create a presentation from scratch
• Ideal for:  education purposes, personal use, and presenters who need multiple media formats

In case standard linear slideshows aren’t enough and you wish for a more vibrant story-based presentation, then PowToon is definitely the best PowerPoint Online alternative for you. The platform offers characters and cartoons to choose from, as well as cleverly made animation and transitions that would turn any presentation into a colorful animated video.

• Price : F ree, $89/month (or $228/year) Pro, $197/month (or $828/year) Pro+
• cloud-based
• rich gallery
• relatively easy to use, there are many tutorial videos
• supports rich text editing
• adds a watermark to all presentations
• no autosave
• many tools and options are only available in the upgraded subscription version
• inability to save an offline version of your work
• no live collaboration
• can’t open other presentation programs file formats
• Ideal for: youtube info videos, personal projects, students, and educational purposes.

Honorable mentions:

There are incredible options for presentation software out there and they are surely not limited to 10 only. This is why we’d like to add a few more suggestions for you to consider.

Starting at $12.25 a month per user, this alternative presentation software is actually a gulp of fresh air from the familiar PowerPoint themes. With its drag and drop style and beautiful infographics, Visme will help you craft a compelling presentation with great visuals. Similar to Haiku Deck, it offers millions of free images and lots of tweaks for the sake of creating virtually any visual content. Unfortunately, it’s not compatible with PowerPoint file formats.

Qwilr is a great option if you want an easy-to-use tool capable of producing professional-looking proposals. It includes features such as allowing you to embed spreadsheets, videos, and SlideShare presentations. As well as sending you notifications when your client views the proposal – and even allowing them to accept the job with just 1 click.  Prices run at $35 per month for a Business account and $590 for an Enterprise account. But you can give it a test run by signing up for a 14-day free trial.

Another presentation software that uses HTML5, Emaze is designed to also make video presentations within minutes. It’s strongly template-driven, but this will only allow you to focus more on your content.

Prezi is perhaps the most popular amongst the PowerPoint Online alternatives out there. With its good-looking user interface, Prezi will help you create amazing visuals for your project. The tool focuses mainly on the graphics, motions, and transition animations that will easily captivate your audience’s attention. Whether its rich motion animations are too overwhelming or not, it’s a matter of personal preference.

• Price : Limited Free version, $5/month Standard, $15/month Plus, $59/month Premium (all plans are billed annually).
• non-linear presentations
• user-friendly interface
• appealing visual cinematics
• compatible with multiple devices
• easy to learn and use
• can work offline ( offline feature requires downloading the software)
• good for teamwork and collaborations
• dynamic visuals
• limited customization, hard to repurpose
• too much motion can cause motion sickness in some cases
• Ideal for: education purposes, companies, personal use

Depending on which direction you wanna go with your presentation, each of the above PowerPoint alternatives offers something different and unique. They are easy to use and predispose your creativity in the process. With the usage of different templates, numerous stock images, beautiful graphics, and animations, you can make your projects captivating and memorable.

In conclusion, the key to a great presentation is always the visuals. The powerful graphics are vital for good design and visualizing ideas.

In fact, in a competitive business environment, making your projects noticed may be a challenge, so there’s always a need for taking the extra mile.

In GraphicMama we believe that using a suitable cartoon character with the right design might be the factor to change the odds in your favor. They are appealing storytellers and commercial protagonists.

Learn about the 5 powerful reasons to go for a cartoon character design in your next presentation.  

If you still prefer to stay loyal to PowerPoint, but you need an extra boost of creativity, check out our collection of 50 free cartoon PowerPoint templates with characters and illustrations.

You may also be interested to read these related articles:

• 7 Most Popular Software for Presentations
• 4 Invaluable Presentation Design Tips You Wish You Knew Earlier
• 70 Inspiring Presentation Slides with Cartoon Designs

Add some character to your visuals

Cartoon Characters, Design Bundles, Illustrations, Backgrounds and more...

Like us on Facebook

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to know what’s new in the world of graphic design and illustrations.

• [email protected]

Browse High Quality Vector Graphics

E.g.: businessman, lion, girl…

Related Articles

How to get custom illustrations for your project, what is a vector file everything you need to know, 8 factors that slow innovation in education in your school, infographic design trends 2021: opposites attract, how to write scannable content step-by-step guide, 500+ free and paid powerpoint infographic templates:, enjoyed this article.

Don’t forget to share!

• Comments (0)

Al Boicheva

Al is an illustrator at GraphicMama with out-of-the-box thinking and a passion for anything creative. In her free time, you will see her drooling over tattoo art, Manga, and horror movies.

Thousands of vector graphics for your projects.

Hey! You made it all the way to the bottom!

Here are some other articles we think you may like:

GraphicMama Studio

Case study: designing hippo cartoon characters.

by Iveta Pavlova

Futuro 2017: a Digital Arts Festival to Remember

Top Graphic Design Trends 2019: Fresh Hot & Bold

Looking for design bundles or cartoon characters.

A source of high-quality vector graphics offering a huge variety of premade character designs, graphic design bundles, Adobe Character Animator puppets, and more.

The best presentation software in 2024

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 used 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 25 of the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

The best presentation software

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Gamma for conversational AI features

Mentimeter for audience engagement

Tome 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 interface. 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 most apps now offer AI features in one way or another, it isn't a universal feature yet—and some apps' AI features leave a lot to be desired. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict must-have for this year (though it probably will be a requirement next time I update the article). That means I've still included some apps that don't offer AI—if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images and text 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.

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, and interactive content. 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 AI tools aren't groundbreakingly useful

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.

Canva has added a number of AI-powered tools , but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. The Magic Design tool, for example, isn't much more useful than the many pre-designed templates already available, while Magic Write is basically just white-labeled ChatGPT. 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 $120/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

If you're looking for a capable free presentation tool with a more affordable upgrade, Zoho Show is worth a look. It's completely free for most features, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates. Plus, you can automate Zoho Show by connecting it with Zapier .

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

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 experience 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 more than 20 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 re-tested the generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) this year. 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 pull in relevant images.

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 a generative AI tool that builds a whole pitch deck based on your website. 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 can only be billed annually.

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's generative AI feature works ok, but it's more useful as a wireframe. When I asked it to create a presentation about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, for example, the resulting content read a lot like a student writing a term paper in the broadest strokes possible to avoid doing any actual research.

Prezi pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans start at $7/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 $15/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, 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

Excellent generative AI feature

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 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.

Pitch also offers one of the most impressive generative AI features on this list. It still struggles to pull in relevant images, but I found the AI-generated written content and design to be top-notch.

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; paid plans start at $22/month for 2 users with additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best presentation app for conversational AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Conversational 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 conversational AI 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 produces a very useful jumping-off point. (Last year, it was by far the best, but this year, other apps are catching up.)

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, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the Plus plan for $8/user/month to get unlimited AI credits, remove Gamma branding, and more.

The best presentation app for audience engagement

Mentimeter (web).

Mentimeter pros:

Tons of audience engagement features

Simple for participants to interact

Mentimeter cons:

Less granular customizability

Bit of a learning curve

If you need to engage with an audience during your presentation, Mentimeter makes that easy. The app is designed around interactive elements like quizzes, surveys, Q&As, sliders, and more (even a Miro whiteboard!).

Each of these is included in a number of different, professional-looking templates, so you can build a fully interactive presentation super quickly.

When it's time to present, your audience members can scan the QR code with their phone cameras or type in the URL and access code to participate. There's one code per presentation (so they won't have to do this on every slide), which gives access to each slide as you move through the presentation.

There are two main drawbacks to this one, though. First, there's a bit of a learning curve and less familiar editing interface (but I found it pretty easy to learn with some practice). The other drawback is that you can't get as granular with the visual customization as you can with many other presentation tools.

Mentimeter pricing: Free plan includes 50 participants per month and 34 different slide types; upgrade to the Basic plan for $11.99/presenter/month to get unlimited participants and slide types, private presentations, and more.

The best presentation app for generative AI

Top-tier generative AI features

Simple, customizable templates

Intuitive doc-style editor

There's definitely a learning curve

Tome is one of the new additions to this list that I'm most excited about. If you're looking for generative AI that just genuinely works , it's definitely worth a look. The editor is a bit more stripped down than most presentation apps but intuitive nonetheless—it's almost a cross between your standard deck editor and a Notion-style doc.

To generate an AI deck, click Generate with AI in the top right, and either write your own prompt or choose from the example prompts that cover a handful of common use cases, like sales enablement and company pitches. Edit or approve the suggested outline, then generate the full presentation.

From there, you can edit each slide as a doc via the right-hand menu—without limits on how much information you can include. During the presentation, you simply size down any slides that take up more than the standard amount of space. It's super simple but somehow feels revolutionary in a presentation app.

Tome pricing: Free plan available for manual editing without AI; upgrade to the Professional plan for $16/user/month to use the generative AI and design tools, plus engagement analytics, branding tools, 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 really been focused on their respective presentation solutions just yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll re-test tools like Copilot for PowerPoint and Gemini for Google Slides to see what new features may be 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.

What about PowerPoint and Google Slides add-ons?

While I focused my testing on tools with full feature-sets—those that can serve as your sole presentation tool—there are a ton of add-on tools you can use atop big name tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides.

If you're looking to expand what you can do with PowerPoint or Google Slides, apps like Marq (formerly Lucidpress), Plus AI , Slidesgo , and Simplified can help you do things like access additional templates, save branded assets, and generate AI presentations from the app you're already using.

Related reading:

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 April 2024.

Get productivity tips delivered straight to your inbox

We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your information.

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.

• Presentations

Related articles

The 8 best email apps to manage your inbox in 2024

The 8 best email apps to manage your inbox...

The 7 best voice recording apps for iPhone in 2024

The 7 best voice recording apps for iPhone...

The 8 best VoIP providers to move your business phone to the cloud in 2024

The 8 best VoIP providers to move your...

The 6 best AI voice generators in 2024

Improve your productivity automatically. Use Zapier to get your apps working together.

7 Alternatives to PowerPoint You Can Use Online

Make stylish presentations with no learning curve

Microsoft PowerPoint is a powerful piece of software for creating winning slideshows and presentations. It’s easy to use even if you’re a complete beginner, has ready-to-use presentation templates, and if you know your way around PowerPoint you can do incredible things with it.

However, there can be a number of reasons to look for alternatives to PowerPoint. Maybe you don’t want to buy Microsoft Office, or put in the time and effort into mastering PowerPoint. Maybe you’re just looking for a fresh look for your office presentations. 

There are plenty of PowerPoint alternatives out there that you can use online. Have a look at our top picks and see which one suits your needs best.

Best for: Creative minds looking to add artistic elements into presentations.

Price: Free, with premium options starting at $9.95/month.

Canva is a great choice for design professionals and artistic people who want to create custom images . While it has the same easy-to-use interface of Microsoft PowerPoint, it comes with plenty of customization options for your slideshow. The free slideshow maker in Canva gives you templates to jumpstart your design in seconds. You can use free stock photos, videos, and music tracks to impress your audience. You can turn your humdrum slides into a downloadable video slideshow too.

With the Canva app, you can design a presentation on iOS and Android too. No watermarks are added and there are no limits to how many times you can make or download slideshows.

Best for: Professional AI-powered presentations when you’re pressed for time.

Price: Free, with premium options starting at $8/month.

Want to create an esthetically beautiful presentation, but don’t think you have the artistic ability for it? Slidebean helps you create AI-powered presentations and slideshows that require next to no effort from you when it comes to formatting and organizing the slides.

You can either choose one of the templates that the app offers, or just write an outline and select a theme for your presentation and let Slidebean do the rest. Slidebean uses artificial intelligence every step of the way, from arranging your slides to generating a color palette.

It’s one of the most efficient ways to create a professional-looking presentation when you don’t have time.

Best for: Users who prefer seeing the big picture instead of breaking down their work into individual slides.

Price: Free, with premium options starting at $5/month or $3/month for students (with a free 14-day triald).

Prezi moves away from the slide-by-slide presentation format entirely. Instead, you’ll be given a whole canvas where you can add text, images, or slides that will make up your presentation. This approach makes it easier to track your progress and see where you’re at with your slideshow.

Prezi might seem complex at first. But creating presentations in Prezi is a breeze. The only new part you’ll find in this alternative to PowerPoint is adding the animation in between your slides. If you’ve done any video editing or animation before, this might become your favourite part about working in Prezi.

Google Slides

Best for: collaboration purposes.

Price: free.

Google Slides is a great alternative to PowerPoint for Google account holders. It’s easy to use, and comes with all the essential features that you need to create an engaging presentation or a slideshow.

The best part of Google Slides is collaborations. You can easily share your presentation with anyone who has a Google account, as well as get them to help you put together a presentation. You can also discuss your presentation contents with Google Slides’ built-in chat.

Also, Google Slides is compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint, so that you can convert a PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides and vice versa. 

Best for: Creating a presentation from scratch.

Price: Free, with premium options starting at $14/month.

If you have to create a slideshow from scratch, you’ll enjoy the variety of templates that Visme has to offer. Using the app’s online editor, you can customize every single part of your presentation. You can select different fonts, theme colours, slide types, formatting style, and more. Add various graphics and images to your presentation to make it more visual.

Then, you- can share or publish your results on the web, save it offline, or downloade it as a PDF.

Best for: Apple and iCloud users.

Price: Free.

Keynote is the default presentation app for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS.c It’s the default PowerPoint alternative for all Apple users. The presentation app is similar to Microsoft PowerPoint but a little simpler to use.

Keynote comes with a variety of templates and customization options for your presentation. When your presentation’s ready, you can share it with other users via iCloud allowing them to make edits online, or save it as a PowerPoint file.

Keynote comes free with any Apple device, and an iCloud account. It is also compatible with Apple Pencil.

Best for: Those looking for functionality identical to PowerPoint.

If you’re looking for an alternative to PowerPoint that you can use online and don’t have to pay for, Zoho Show is the right pick for you. Zoho Show is also compatible with PowerPoint, so you can import and export files from one app to the other.

You’ll find a decent choice of ready-to-use templates on the site, as well as styles and fonts to choose from. Zoho Show offers a wide range of collaboration options, so you can work on your presentation together with other users, as well as share the results of your work both online and offline.

Zoho Show comes with dedicated apps for Android and iOS, so you can work on your presentations using your smartphone.

Is it Time to Drop Microsoft PowerPoint?

While Microsoft PowerPoint is a solid choice for creating presentations, sometimes you have to spend a lot of time and effort on creating a truly engaging slideshow in this software. Maybe it’s time to look at alternative presentation software that might be more suitable for your needs and abilities. 

Do you prefer using Microsoft PowerPoint or an alternative presentation software? If it’s not PowerPoint, what presentation software do you use and what’s your favourite thing about it?

Anya is a freelance technology writer. Originally from Russia, she is currently a full-time Remote Worker and Digital Nomad. With a background in Journalism, Language Studies, and Technical Translation, Anya couldn't imagine her life and work without using modern technology on a daily basis. Always looking out for new ways to make her life and location-independent lifestyle easier, she hopes to share her experiences as a tech- and internet-addict through her writing. Read Anya's Full Bio

Read More Posts:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• Presentation Design

13 Best Free Presentation Websites Alternatives to PowerPoint in 2023

‍ What is a presentation website?

Presentation websites are applications created to present information as a slide show. Slideshows are presentations that comprise charts, images, videos, and the standard text. They ensure that data is displayed clearly, summarized, and readable to the audience.  

Slideshows work best when presented on a projector or a big screen. Intermittently, some users might print out slide shows as documents, but this is ill-suited for that purpose. 

Any presentation tool must have three fundamental functions:

• ‍ A text editor: to input the contents of the presentation.
• ‍ An import function: to insert and manipulate images and other content.
• ‍ A slide-show or presenter mode: that displays the content in a nice, formatted way.

Slide shows often consist of a combination of text, video, images and charts. Their primary function is displaying clear, readable and summarized data to an audience.

Most presentations are shared and presented on a larger screen or through a digital projector. In rare occasions, slide presentations are printed out as a replacement for text documents, but this is a really inefficient way to review data, that Garr Reynolds calls ‘ PresDocs ’ (Garr Reynolds is the author of Presentation Zen, one of the most important go-to reference for successful presentations).

Related Read: What Makes Up the Best Presentation Templates?

What makes the best presentation website?

When looking for the best presentation apps, there is a need to consider not just pitch decks but also school lectures, religious sermons, and adverts. Therefore, an excellent presentation app should be affordable, have enough sharing and collaboration options, have a range of pre-built templates, and be flexible. 

Visualization in presentations

A presentation without visual aids can be very boring. It's hard to remember things if they are just words on a page or screen. But with visuals, people retain information much better. So, ensure you have some great images to help your audience understand what you're talking about.

Consider using infographics if you want to add some spice to your presentations. Infographics are visually appealing ways to present complex information in a simple way. They can include charts, graphs, maps, diagrams, timelines, etc. Many online tools are available to create them, including Piktochart , Visually, and Canva . 

Presentation or visualization names of websites

Presentation websites allow you to create amazing presentations through the use of web technologies.

There are many cases when you might need to create a presentation for a particular purpose. Creating a presentation on PowerPoint is easy, but that doesn't mean it's the best option. That's why we'll talk about how to create a presentation without PowerPoint and how to get the best out of these presentation website alternatives. 

However, there exist today, numerous applications, software, and websites that can help create stunning designs and art for presentations other than PowerPoint. From Slidebean to Google Slides, there are more than enough presentation apps to help you. No matter your tastes, needs, and specifications, there is always one that fits your bill. Read on to find out more.

What makes a great PowerPoint Alternative?

Not everyone prefers PowerPoint. Why? Because it can feel and look clunky at times. But not every PowerPoint alternative works the same way. To find the best one for you, look out for features such as:

• Ability to present online and offline.
• Sharing and collaboration features.
• Features that allow for easy interpretation and assimilation of data.
• Highly customizable templates.
• Good transition and animation capabilities.
• Work import capabilities.

What are some good presentation websites

Here's a list of the best 10 powerpoint alternatives for 2023:.

Check out our top 10 presentation software tools that we believe are great alternatives to PowerPoint. We've curated this list based on our own interests and research. Let's dive right in and get started:

1. Slidebean presentation builder

Key Differentiator: Time Efficiency and Design

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $199/year

Slidebean tops our list for its impressive time efficiency and design capabilities. This presentation software harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to calculate new slide designs in seconds. The platform offers a vast array of professional templates, each equipped with text suggestions tailored to various industries, making presentation creation a breeze. Slidebean also allows logo integration, enhancing your branding. Moreover, the tracking feature provides valuable insights into audience engagement, giving you the opportunity to improve your content and drive success in your presentations.

TRY SLIDEBEAN PRESENTATIONS

2. google slides.

Key Differentiator: Collaborative Convenience

Pricing: Free

Google Slides is an excellent choice for those seeking seamless collaboration and cloud-based convenience. With a reliable internet connection, multiple collaborators can work on a single project simultaneously without any need for downloads. The platform also allows sharing via email, facilitating easy dissemination of your presentations. Although Google Slides offers some impressive templates, it could benefit from more diverse design options for a truly personalized touch.

TRY GOOGLE SLIDES

Key Differentiator: "Zooming" into Creativity

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $5/month)

Prezi's zoom function sets it apart, creating engaging and dynamic presentations. It boasts a unique smart structure technology that impresses audiences. However, using Prezi's exceptional features might require training and design skills. While the free version offers significant benefits, remember that it comes with privacy limitations. Consider opting for the paid plans if confidentiality is crucial for your presentations.

4. Apple Keynote

Key Differentiator: Sleek and Sophisticated

Pricing: Free with Mac devices, standalone versions available for macOS at $19.99

Designed for Apple users, Keynote brings sleekness and sophistication to your presentations. The software is versatile, allowing you to work on floor plans and text slides alike. While it may lack some collaborative features of other platforms, Keynote excels in creating aesthetically pleasing and professional presentation materials.

TRY KEYNOTE

5. haiku deck.

Key Differentiator: Simplified Storytelling

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $9.99/month

Haiku Deck focuses on visual storytelling, providing an array of visually appealing templates and high-quality images to captivate your audience. The software streamlines the presentation process, making it ideal for those seeking simplicity and elegance. With its user-friendly interface, Haiku Deck enables you to create impressive slides in minutes.

TRY HAIKU DECK

Key Differentiator: Design Flexibility

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $9.95/month)

Though primarily known for graphic design, Canva also offers powerful presentation tools. With a vast library of design elements, templates, and stock images, Canva allows you to fully customize your slides. Its collaborative features and easy sharing options make it a go-to choice for teams working on presentations.

Key Differentiator: Visual Content Creation

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $25/month

Visme excels in visual content creation, offering impressive charts, graphs, and infographics. This platform goes beyond conventional presentations, making it ideal for educational and business purposes. It enables you to create interactive and engaging content that will leave a lasting impact on your audience.

Key Differentiator: Animated Presentations

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $19/month

If you want to bring your presentations to life with animation, Powtoon is the software for you. Its dynamic and animated slides add flair to your content, keeping your audience engaged throughout the presentation. Powtoon's easy-to-use interface and extensive library of animated assets make it perfect for creating captivating animated presentations.

TRY POWTOON

Key Differentiator: Multi-dimensional Presentations

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $12/month

Emaze stands out with its multi-dimensional presentation capabilities. It offers 3D templates, virtual reality integration, and immersive slides, making your presentations stand out. For those seeking innovative ways to captivate audiences, Emaze is a powerful choice.

10. Zoho Show

Key Differentiator: Collaborative Creation

Pricing: Free with limited features, paid plans start at $5/month

Zoho Show offers collaborative features that make teamwork seamless. It allows multiple users to collaborate in real time, making it an excellent choice for group projects and presentations. The platform also provides a variety of templates and customization options to suit your presentation needs.

TRY ZOHO SHOW

A presentation software launched in 2020, Pitch is already referred to as a “PowerPoint killer”. It was created to help non-designers (or beginners) create excellent pitch decks. 

Pitch has an extensive library of presentation templates, but this is just one of its benefits. This software emphasizes collaboration and even includes built-in video collaboration for remote teams to work together. Pitch presentations can also be integrated with Google Analytics, Google Sheets, and similar applications.

This cloud-based presentation tool proffers a user-friendly alternative to PowerPoint. Its sleek editor interface allows you to add your preferred background images, import a variety of designs, and collaborate easily with others. It is known to be very user-friendly.

Slides offers access and edit features from any device, as long as it is internet-connected. It also helps manage privacy rights, allows presentations offline, offers analytics management, and allows for adding GIFs and images. 

However, it is limited in slide options and templates and does not offer graphic inclusions.

Gamma is a user-friendly web tool designed to make creating presentations easier for both educators and students. Its standout feature is its AI technology, which handles design tasks, allowing users to focus on their content. With Gamma, anyone can quickly create visually appealing presentations without needing advanced design skills.

How do I create a presentation without PowerPoint?

Numerous alternatives to PowerPoint are on the Internet. The issue is not about creating a presentation without PowerPoint but getting that presentation tool or software that can help achieve your goal. 

While many tools offer free accounts to peruse and utilize online and offline presentations, some do not. This does not mean the free tools are not good, rather, it is just a marketing idea. 

What can I use instead of PowerPoint for free?

Here are some presentation tools you can make use of instead of PowerPoint;

WPS Office boasts functionality and a well-designed, along with offline document capabilities. Sometimes accused of having very similar features to Microsoft Office, users can efficiently work on PowerPoint files. It also offers many templates. However, collaboration might be a bit stressful. 

WPS Office is available on Android, Web Windows, iOS, Linux, and macOS.

If there is one thing Canva has, it is templates. Canva makes PowerPoint look simple with a vast array of templates for every specification. If you have a problem with making decisions, do not use Canva.

However, that is its Achilles heel; many people find themselves scrolling for so long. Not all templates are free but, it helps narrow down your options. 

• Bonus Tool: InVideo

InVideo is considered a cloud-based online video editing tool with the feature of creating slideshow videos. it contains a huge selection of slideshow templates, stock footage, photos, and music to make great slideshow videos without a watermark. Although it is available for free, some features require a premium subscription.

Without a doubt, it can be stressful to get that one presentation software that can fit your exact specifications and give the required output. Although utilizing Slidebean can be very flexible, it can also be use to produce the best infographic presentation that compares data in an easily-understood manner.

Popular Articles

Startup vs Small Business: Main differences

The Best 35 Pitch Decks for 2023: Templates for for Startups

Upcoming events, financial modeling bootcamp, how to close a funding round.

Startup Equity Explained: Pies vs. Bricks and the Value of Shares

10 Elevator Pitch Examples from Successful Startups

Let’s move your company to the next stage 🚀

Ai pitch deck software, pitch deck services.

Financial Model Consulting for Startups 🚀

Raise money with our pitch deck writing and design service 🚀

The all-in-one pitch deck software 🚀

Check out our list of the top free presentation websites that offer unique features and design options. Discover the best platform for your next presentation now.

This is a functional model you can use to create your own formulas and project your potential business growth. Instructions on how to use it are on the front page.

Book a call with our sales team

In a hurry? Give us a call at 

Sign up for our daily newsletter

• Privacy Policy
• Advertise with Us

8 Alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint You Need to Try

Microsoft PowerPoint carved out a niche for itself in the sphere of presentation. However, many people now see PowerPoint as outdated and expensive, especially given that the platform hasn’t really evolved with the times. As more people look for ways to engage audiences with narrative storytelling over boring slide presentations, they seek alternatives to PowerPoint that let them have greater control over their presentations. After all, shouldn’t we all be looking for cost-effective solutions as we choose value over dogma? Then look no further than these great alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint.

1. Google Slides

3. libreoffice impress, 5. slidebean, 7. beautiful.ai, 8. zoho show, frequently asked questions.

Also read: 14 Useful PowerPoint Templates to Set Up a Digital Planner

Google Slides helps you tell stories that matter while enabling synchronization. It’s an incredible PowerPoint alternative that costs absolutely nothing to use.

You can create easy-to-use visual presentations on Google Slides with its simple user interface. The PowerPoint-like design makes it a breezy transition for experienced PowerPoint users, but it’s also easy to navigate through the menus if you are new to making presentations.

With Google Slides, you have complete control over the page size and formatting. Although the text options are limited, there are many other standout design features included. You can choose from the preformatted slide themes or import your own backgrounds, then add slide transitions or object animations to enhance your presentation.

You’re free to work from anywhere, as Google syncs all of your work to Google Drive, and you can gain access to your presentations from any device. Easily share presentations on the Web through the custom link or via email. You can even set the presentation up to allow multiple users editing privileges that sync in real time, which means you never have to worry about which version is the most recent.

The best part? Google Slides is a completely free-to-use app – all you need is a Google account .

If you want something a little less traditional than PowerPoint, Prezi is a great option. Many claim Prezi is more engaging and persuasive.

Prezi takes a completely different approach to digital presentations. For instance, you can build a complete presentation structure on a single canvas, zooming in and out as you emphasize and de-emphasize facts. This way, you are controlling and guiding what your audience sees.

Unlike most other presentation software tools, Prezi gives you the option to make video presentations, interactive reports, infographics, and more.

Prezi is cloud-based presentation software, so you can access your presentations across many platforms. You can try Prezi for free, but it is extremely limited. For instance, you won’t be able to download your work or save it as a PDF. You can, however, create a presentation from scratch and use your laptop to quickly present it to your team. If you need more, you’ll have to upgrade. Prezi has three different pricing tiers for individuals: Standard ($5/mo), Plus ($15/mo), and Premium ($59/mo).

LibreOffice Impress is a part of the LibreOffice suite, an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. When considering alternatives to PowerPoint, LibreOffice Impress is right up there with Google Slides, as it lets you open and save files in PowerPoint format or convert them to the OpenOffice extension.

On the surface, LibreOffice looks very similar to PowerPoint. It offers many of the same tools, and even the menu options and ribbon appear very similar to the well-known Microsoft product.

Format text, add images, set slide transitions and more with LibreOffice. You can also select from different aspect ratios, which can be important when using a different projector. Best of all, LibreOffice Impress is free to use!

Also read: 11 of the Best Journaling Apps for Windows

Keynote , Apple’s alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint, offers a sleek, sophisticated approach to presentation design. Keynote users agree that it’s intuitive and easy to use.

You can create beautiful presentations in Keynote without wasting time surfing for unique templates. This presentation tool has many eye-popping templates to choose from and offers most of the same features as PowerPoint, making it a great alternative.

Unlike PowerPoint, though, Keynote provides much more control over the text, images, and objects you insert into your presentations. Furthermore, you can save completed presentations in a variety of formats or export the files into images or a PDF.

The only drawback to Keynote is its exclusivity, as it’s only available on Apple devices. However, it is native to macOS, meaning it is free for Mac users who need presentation software.

If you only have a little time on your hands to design eye-popping PowerPoint slides, then Slidebean will be a good fit for you!

With Slidebean, you only input content, while the software helps you design and format your content. You can also choose from hundreds of preformatted templates or start your own presentation from scratch.

Once in the design platform, everything is fairly straightforward. After the software preformats slides for you, click the text boxes to input your data. After you’ve typed everything in, click the AI tool to have it format everything for you or move objects manually.

Sidebean does offer a free, basic version of their Web-based presentation tool. However, if you decide to upgrade to use some of the more advanced features, it will cost $299/year for the all-access version.

Also read: 9 of the Best LMS Alternatives to Google Classroom

If you design social media graphics , you may have already heard of Canva , a highly recommended app in terms of entry-level graphic design. Even e-learning platforms like Skillshare offer classes that utilize Canva for social media marketing. However, this Web-based design suite isn’t just for creating social media posts – it can also be used to create presentations.

Within the “Presentation” section of Canva, you have the option to select different types of presentations, including widescreen (16:9), fullscreen (4:3), mobile-friendly, or game-like presentations. Then choose from the hundreds of predesigned templates or create your own presentation from scratch.

As far as the interface goes, the presentation creator works similarly to the rest of the Canva platform. You can add images or graphics, format text, and even insert audio or video. Furthermore, you can add animations, slide transitions, and even set the presentation to run automatically with timed slides.

Since Canva is Web-based, you can present your creations from anywhere as long as there’s an Internet connection. Unfortunately, Canva does not let you download your presentations as PowerPoint files – only image files or PDFs.

Canva does offer a free version with some limitations. If you decide you need more than that, upgrade to the Pro plan for $12.99/month.

Like Slidebean, Beautiful.ai is an alternative to PowerPoint that is designed to make your presentation design process take minutes, not hours.

Unlike most presentation programs, Beautiful.ai is a tool that streamlines your design process. Set all of the formatting upfront, then put in your text while the tool helps you determine the best design. It adjusts your design in real time as you add elements to each slide so that you don’t have to ever worry about making everything fit.

Of course, Beautiful.ai’s primary goal is to help you create outstanding, appealing presentations that capture your target audience’s attention. Unfortunately, all of this comes at a premium. Beautiful.ai doesn’t offer anything more than a 14-day free trial. After that, pricing starts at $12/month (billed annually).

Also read: What Is Microsoft Lists and How to Get Started with It?

Zoho is a leader in software solutions, and their PowerPoint alternative, Zoho Show , is no different.

Zoho Show is a Web-based alternative to PowerPoint that lets you create stunning presentations your way. Its setup is much the same as PowerPoint itself, and it offers all of the same features.

Unlike PowerPoint, Zoho Show lets you import a variety of file types, including .PPT, .PPTX, .PPS, .PPSX, .ODP and .SXI. Also, the embed options are much more robust with Zoho Show – you can even add tweets, YouTube videos, and images directly from Flickr.

Zoho Show is free to use, but you can upgrade to a more advanced plan for as little as $3/month.

Also read: 10 Free Microsoft SharePoint Alternatives

Can I open .ppt files in any programs besides PowerPoint?

Several of the PowerPoint alternatives listed in this article, such as Google Slides, Keynote, LibreOffice Impress, and Zoho Show, will open PowerPoint files (.ppt) files and allow you to edit them. However, you may run into formatting issues that you have to correct.

Do any PowerPoint alternatives work on mobile devices?

Several PowerPoint alternatives are mobile friendly. Google Slides ( Android | iOS ), Canva ( Android | iOS ), Zoho Show ( Android | iOS ), and LibreOffice Impress ( Android | iOS ) are all available as mobile apps. However, the experience of creating a presentation will be far superior on PC.

Is there a way to use PowerPoint for free?

Although Microsoft Office requires a subscription, you can use Office online or on your mobile device for free. There are also other workarounds that grant you free access to Microsoft Office .

Image credit: Canva Studio via Pexels . All screenshots by Megan Glosson.

Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox

Megan Glosson is a freelance technology writer based in Nashville, TN. She has extensive experience working with everything from printers to smart home systems, and serves as the go-to “tech guru” for a small business that sells digital products. Megan has created thousands of articles for online publications and company blogs, including How-To Geek, Clean Email, and Review Geek. When she’s not writing, you will probably find Megan playing board games with her partner and two children or swimming in the pool. You can check out Megan’s entire portfolio on her website, https://www.meganglosson.com/.

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 .

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. 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 .  

Get in touch

• Want to find out about commercial or marketing opportunities? Click here
• Out of date info, errors, complaints or broken links? Give us a nudge
• Got a suggestion for a product or service provider? Message us directly
• You've reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

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. 

Adobe Fill & Sign (2024) review

Adobe Fonts (2024) review

Rise of the microcar – why compact EVs are finally having their day and the ones to watch

Most Popular

• 2 Apple iPad Pro M4 event Live blog as it happened: OLED, Air, Pencil and more
• 3 Microsoft is investing billions into another major US AI data center — and its location is a slap in the face to Apple
• 4 Annoyed by Prime Video forcing ads on you? Well, it's about to get even worse
• 5 Chinese server CPU beats Microsoft, Google and AWS rivals to grab performance crown — Alibaba's Yitian 710 is quickest server CPU but it is based on Arm rather than RISC and x86 is likely to be the overall speed champion
• 2 4 reasons why most free VPNs are scams
• 3 Boeing says it refused to pay massive ransomware demand
• 4 Logic Pro 2 is a reminder that Apple's AI ambitions aren't just about chatbots
• 5 I tested Samsung's glare-free OLED TV vs a conventional OLED TV – here's what I learned

Cloud Storage

Custom Business Email

Video and voice conferencing

Shared Calendars

Word Processing

Spreadsheets

Presentation Builder

Survey builder

Google Workspace

An integrated suit of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI.

Tell impactful stories, with Google Slides

Create, present, and collaborate on online presentations in real-time and from any device.

• For my personal use
• For work or my business

Jeffery Clark

T h i s   c h a r t   h e l p s   b r i d g i n g   t h e   s t o r y !

E s t i m a t e d   b u d g e t

Make beautiful presentations, together

Stay in sync in your slides, with easy sharing and real-time editing. Use comments and assign action items to build your ideas together.

Present slideshows with confidence

With easy-to-use presenter view, speaker notes, and live captions, Slides makes presenting your ideas a breeze. You can even present to Google Meet video calls directly from Slides.

Seamlessly connect to your other Google apps

Slides is thoughtfully connected to other Google apps you love, saving you time. Embed charts from Google Sheets or reply to comments directly from Gmail. You can even search the web and Google Drive for relevant content and images directly from Slides.

Extend collaboration and intelligence to PowerPoint files

Easily edit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations online without converting them, and layer on Slides’ enhanced collaborative and assistive features like comments, action items, and Smart Compose.

Work on fresh content

With Slides, everyone’s working on the latest version of a presentation. And with edits automatically saved in version history, it’s easy to track or undo changes.

Make slides faster, with built-in intelligence

Assistive features like Smart Compose and autocorrect help you build slides faster with fewer errors.

Stay productive, even offline

You can access, create, and edit Slides even without an internet connection, helping you stay productive from anywhere.

Security, compliance, and privacy

Secure by default

We use industry-leading security measures to keep your data safe, including advanced malware protections. Slides is also cloud-native, eliminating the need for local files and minimizing risk to your devices.

Encryption in transit and at rest

All files uploaded to Google Drive or created in Slides are encrypted in transit and at rest.

Compliance to support regulatory requirements

Our products, including Slides, regularly undergo independent verification of their security, privacy, and compliance controls .

Private by design

Slides adheres to the same robust privacy commitments and data protections as the rest of Google Cloud’s enterprise services .

You control your data.

We never use your slides content for ad purposes., we never sell your personal information to third parties., find the plan that’s right for you, google slides is a part of google workspace.

Every plan includes

Collaborate from anywhere, on any device

Access, create, and edit your presentations wherever you are — from any mobile device, tablet, or computer — even when offline.

Get a head start with templates

Choose from a variety of presentations, reports, and other professionally-designed templates to kick things off quickly..

Photo Album

Book Report

Visit the Slides Template Gallery for more.

Ready to get started?

5 Free Alternatives To Microsoft PowerPoint

M icrosoft PowerPoint has always been the default choice for creating professional meeting briefs or fun little project demonstrations in schools. Its inclusion as a free service for students or working professionals makes it a no-brainer to use. However, for the general public, it can get quite expensive to pay for a subscription just to be able to create simple presentation slides. Although you can subscribe to Microsoft's Office Suite and get more bang for your buck, the pricing still doesn't hit the affordable range for most. 

Fortunately, completion has been growing, and a sea of strong contenders offer similar services to PowerPoint. After considering feature sets, here are five of the best free alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint. At the end of the article, you can find a detailed explanation of why we've chosen the services, alongside useful comparisons that may help you make your decision easier.

Read more: The 20 Best Mac Apps That Will Improve Your Apple Experience

When it comes to productivity apps, Zoho makes some of the better ones in the market. Zoho Sheet, for example, is one of the best Microsoft Excel alternatives out there  —  owing to its extensive product catalog, there is a great way to view and edit presentations. The aptly named Zoho Show lets you design and demonstrate professional-looking slides, all without having to download the program.

Zoho takes a minimal approach to most of its services, and its PowerPoint application is no different. You'll find that most menus are contextually aware of what tasks you're currently performing, which helps keep unnecessary tools out of the way and bring the important ones in focus. There is also a huge library of customizable templates you can choose from, making it easier to kickstart your presentation work. 

Zoho Show is completely free to use for individuals and offers unlimited cloud storage. No features are locked behind a paywall, and rest assured, you can fully rely on this online presentation-making tool for all your needs, be it for school or work. 

Canva is a service that can easily climb up to becoming everyone's favorite once they start using it. While most applaud it for its graphic designing prowess, there are many other things Canva can do that you probably aren't aware of . Among them is the ability to craft beautiful slides for your presentations and projects. 

By creating a free account, you can access thousands of templates on Canva. You can filter these by use case—maybe you need one for a professional business briefing or a casual one explaining why your pet dog is the best canine. There is a whole section of ready-to-use templates dedicated to mobile-friendly viewing as well, which is something you don't usually find to be as accessible with other tools. 

Like most presentation apps, Canva lets you collaborate with your team members and work across devices seamlessly. The Canva app for mobile also lets you control your slides remotely during your presentation. Some menus also feature AI-featured tools to add one-click enhancements to your slides -- unfortunately, these are locked behind premium subscription tiers. However, for the cent percent of the population, Canva can be used without spending a dime to meet a plethora of creative needs. 

Apple takes great pride in developing in-house solutions to meet every user requirement. While most of its products dominate the competition in popularity, the same cannot be said for Keynote , the company's version of Microsoft PowerPoint. The program was first released in 2003 with macOS Big Sur and has largely remained one of those icons you glance over and forget about. 

However, recent versions of Keynote have made it a compelling alternative to PowerPoint. Not only is it pre-installed on every Apple device, including your iPhone, but it also works best with the iPad touchscreen. Keynote has a largely clean and professional approach to the built-in templates, but nothing is stopping you from going creative. Animations are one of Keynote's strongest suits, allowing you to create near cinematic-looking presentations with just a few clicks. 

While you can still use Apple Keynote through iCloud on Windows devices, this alternative is clearly meant for people surrounded by the walled garden of Apple technology. It makes use of features like AirDrop, Live Photos, and VoiceOver  — all of which are technologies available across Apple devices. Using Apple Keynote is completely free, and the app has easy exporting tools that make working with Microsoft PowerPoint less of a hassle.

WPS Presentation

WPS Office makes some of the best solutions for creating and editing documents on smartphones , but their service offerings extend to Windows, macOS, and even Linux. WPS Presentation is perhaps the closest you'll get to Microsoft PowerPoint in terms of the user interface and how most tools are bundled in familiar locations.

This PowerPoint app offers real-time collaboration where you can invite your team members and work on the same document remotely. Like most collaboration tools, users can leave comments to suggest changes or add information for other people on the team.

WPS Presentation is not the only free product; you can utilize every app in the WPS Office suite. Unlike most competitors, you don't need to download or use a separate mini-app to make presentations. WPS Office has a document editor, PowerPoint creator, spreadsheet manager, and other tools all within its umbrella. Premium plans for this service exist, but they mostly cater to unlocking features for editing PDFs. 

Google Slides

As a netizen, you most likely already have a Google account. Not only is it required to make any meaningful use of your Android phone, but popular services that we take for granted, like Gmail and Drive, all fall under Google's umbrella. One such free service that the tech giant has at its disposal is Google Slides . While the barebones UI might seem lackluster at first, Slides has nearly the same level of functionality as Microsoft PowerPoint and can even be supercharged by add-ons. 

All of Google's workspace apps, such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides, provide an intuitive way to work in a team. You can add comments, use annotations, and share the presentation with limited access to others. You can use one of the many predesigned Google Slides templates for simple presentations , or browse for templates that cater to specific needs. Being part of a bigger service catalog has its obvious advantages, such as seamless integration with Google Meet, Gmail, and other products from Google that you already use. 

We recommend Google Slides to anyone who needs to create and edit PowerPoint presentations on the go and can't be bothered with working in a complicated environment. The service is also available as an app for Android and iOS, and you can export your presentations in a wide range of formats, including PPT, PDF, or PNG for individual slides. 

To Pay Or Not To Pay?

You'll notice that all the services we've mentioned on this list are free to use. In fact, you can use Office 365 apps online for free   — including PowerPoint, which makes purchasing a standalone subscription to the Microsoft PowerPoint app quite redundant. However, nearly every free alternative here short of Keynote also offers premium plans, but should you consider buying one?

For the vast majority of people who are looking for a robust software to create, edit, and share presentations with  —  these free options deliver exceptionally well in every aspect. Some apps like Google Slides and Apple Keynote let you work in smaller teams with the free tier as well. Apps like WPS Office and Canva tend to lock new and exciting features like AI tools behind a paywall, and while these are nice to have, you definitely can do without them. 

If you're looking for a presentation tool for a company with multiple people, you can scale up using any of the alternatives mentioned on this list. Both Google Workspace and Zoho offer reliable and enterprise-level plans you can upgrade to. For everyone else  — enjoy creating and demonstrating your PowerPoint presentations for free.

Read the original article on SlashGear .

Top searches

Trending searches

11 templates

28 templates

holy spirit

36 templates

islamic history

memorial day

12 templates

165 templates

Create engaging presentations, faster

Free templates for google slides and powerpoint, or kick off your next project with ai presentation maker, create your presentation, writing tone, number of slides.

Great presentations, faster

Slidesgo for Google Slides :  The easy way to wow

125 templates

Slidesclass

291 templates

Editor’s Choice

3122 templates

Interactive

357 templates

224 templates

332 templates

1 templates

466 templates

938 templates

353 templates

Presentation Maker

1208 templates

65 templates

2976 templates

Latest themes

Design Inspiration Theme for Education

Download the Design Inspiration Theme for Education presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and...

Design Inspiration for College

Download the Design Inspiration for College presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. As university curricula increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms, this template has been designed to integrate with presentation software, online learning management systems, or referencing software, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of student work. Edit this Google...

Vintage Floral Social Media Planner

Download the Vintage Floral Social Media Planner presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. How do you use social media platforms to achieve your business goals? If you need a thorough and professional tool to plan and keep track of your social media strategy, this fully customizable template is your ultimate...

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Workshop with Cycle Diagrams

Download the Workshop with Cycle Diagrams presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you are planning your next workshop and looking for ways to make it memorable for your audience, don’t go anywhere. Because this creative template is just what you need! With its visually stunning design, you can provide...

Botanical Harmony Portfolio

Download the Botanical Harmony Portfolio presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. When a potential client or employer flips through the pages of your portfolio, they're not just looking at your work; they're trying to get a sense of who you are as a person. That's why it's crucial to curate...

Human Rights Workshop

Download the Human Rights Workshop presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you are planning your next workshop and looking for ways to make it memorable for your audience, don’t go anywhere. Because this creative template is just what you need! With its visually stunning design, you can provide your...

Popular themes

Minimalist Business Slides

Minimalism is an art style that frees the canvas and that lets the content stand out for itself. It’s a way of conveying modernism, simplicity and elegance and can be your best ally in your next presentation. With this new design from Slidesgo, your business presentations will be as professional...

Mother's Day Postcards

For a special Mother's Day surprise, why not give your mom something that is both heartfelt and creative? With this template for PowerPoint and Google Slides, you can craft custom postcards for the special woman in your life. This template comes with a modern design featuring a colorful background, playful...

US Mother's Day

This design is dedicated to all mothers! Mother's Day is celebrated on different dates around the world, but the same dedication and love is used when celebrating it. In the United States, moms receive greetings and gifts on the second Sunday of every May. Do you want to give the...

Elegant Workplan

Developing a successful business plan can be challenging, but with the right tools at your disposal, it becomes much simpler. This template is a comprehensive document that allows you to outline your business goals, strategies, and financial projections in a professional and aesthetically pleasing way. The full suite of resources...

AI Tech Agency

It’s amazing how robots and computers are able to perform tasks that we thought only humans could do. If your agency is specialized in artificial intelligence, this free marketing presentation template can help you get your points across easily!

Notebook Lesson

These are the last days before the Summer break! We know that there are some pending lessons that you need to prepare for your students. As they may be thinking about their friends and their holidays, catch their attention with this cool template!

Infographics

Medical 4 Blocker Template Theme

Download the Medical 4 Blocker Template Theme presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. Healthcare goes beyond curing patients and combating illnesses. Raising awareness about diseases, informing people about prevention methods, discussing some good practices, or even talking about a balanced diet—there are many topics related to medicine that you could...

Background Infographics

Download the Background Infographics presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. High school students are approaching adulthood, and therefore, this template’s design reflects the mature nature of their education. Customize the well-defined sections, integrate multimedia and interactive elements and allow space for research or group projects—the possibilities of this engaging and...

Old Engraving Style Portfolio Infographics

Download the Old Engraving Style Portfolio Infographics template for PowerPoint or Google Slides and discover the power of infographics. An infographic resource gives you the ability to showcase your content in a more visual way, which will make it easier for your audience to understand your topic. Slidesgo infographics like...

Education presentation templates

666 templates

505 templates

96 templates

689 templates

836 templates

2624 templates

Thesis Defense

701 templates

Teacher Toolkit

121 templates

342 templates

639 templates

46 templates

Interactive & Animated

Physics Flashcards

Download the Physics Flashcards presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources. You...

Database Company Business Plan

Download the Database Company Business Plan presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. Conveying your business plan accurately and effectively is the cornerstone of any successful venture. This template allows you to pinpoint essential elements of your operation while your audience will appreciate the clear and concise presentation, eliminating any potential...

Research Methodology Development

Download the Research Methodology Development presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and engage audiences....

What's new on Slidesgo

See the latest website updates, new features and tools and make the most of your Slidesgo experience.

Make presentations with AI

New feature available: edit our templates with Canva

Smartick, now available on Slidesgo

Browse by tags.

• Kids 1579 templates
• Food 808 templates
• Technology 859 templates
• Travel 353 templates
• Animal 859 templates
• Art 639 templates
• Health 3300 templates
• History 1118 templates
• Environment 414 templates
• Galaxy 159 templates
• Fashion 211 templates
• Biology 378 templates
• Summer 156 templates
• Architecture 121 templates
• Music 342 templates
• Research 1356 templates
• Culture 1768 templates
• Background 8093 templates
• Back to School 168 templates
• Coloring Page 352 templates

What do our users say about us?

I just wanted to thank you! I learned more about slides in one day of quarantine than in my whole life

Gabriela Miranda

Your slides are so unique and gorgeous! They really help me with PowerPoint presentations for school and now even my mom uses them for work

Marie Dupuis

I would like to thank to you for these amazing templates. I have never seen such service, especially free! They are very useful for my presentation.

Ali Serdar Çelikezen

Thank you Slidesgo for creating amazing templates for us. It's made my presentation become much better.

Thiên Trang Nguyễn

Register for free and start editing online

How-To Geek

How to get microsoft office for free.

Don't want to pay for a subscription or buy the standalone version?

Quick Links

Use office online in a browser; it's free, sign up for a free one-month trial, get office free as a student or teacher, try the mobile apps on phones and small ipads, join someone's microsoft 365 home plan, free microsoft office alternatives, key takeaways.

There are a few ways to get Microsoft Office for free: You can use Office for free in your browser, you can sign up for a one-month free trial, or you may get access through your educational institution if you’re a student or teacher.

Microsoft Office normally starts at $70 per year, but there are quite a few ways to get it for free. We'll show you all the ways you can get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office applications without paying a cent.

Whether you're using a Windows PC, Mac, or Chromebook, you can use Microsoft Office for free in a web browser. The web-based versions of Office are simplified and won't work offline, but they still offer a powerful editing experience. You can open and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents right in your browser.

To access these free web apps, just head to Office.com and sign in with a free Microsoft account. Click an application icon—like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint—to open the web version of that application.

You can also drag and drop a file from your computer onto the Office.com page. It will be uploaded to your Microsoft account's free OneDrive storage, and you can open it in the associated application.

Office's web applications have some limitations. These applications aren't quite as full featured as the classic Office desktop applications for Windows and Mac, and you can't access them offline. But they do offer surprisingly powerful Office applications, and they're completely free.

If you just need Microsoft Office for a short period of time, you can sign up for a one-month free trial. To find this offer, head to Microsoft's Try Microsoft 365 for free website, and sign up for the trial.

You will have to provide a credit card to sign up for the trial, and it will automatically renew after the month. However, you can cancel your subscription at any time—even right after signing up—to ensure you won't get billed. You can continue using Office for the rest of your free month after canceling.

After joining the trial, you can download full versions of these Microsoft Office applications for Windows PCs and Macs. You'll also get access to the full versions of the apps on other platforms, including larger iPads.

This trial will give you full access to a Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) Home plan. You'll get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and 1TB of storage in OneDrive. You can share it with up to five other people. They'll each get access to the apps via their Microsoft account, and will have their own 1TB of storage for a combined 6TB of storage.

Microsoft also offers free 30-day evaluations of Microsoft 365 for Business , which is intended for businesses. You might be able to take advantage of both offers for two months of free Microsoft Office access.

Many educational institutions pay for Office 365 plans, allowing students and teachers to download the software for free.

To find out if your school participates, head to the Office 365 Education website, and enter your school email address. You'll be offered a free download if it's available to you through your school's plan.

Even if a university or college doesn't participate, it may offer Microsoft Office at a reduced cost to students and teachers through its bookstore. Check with your educational institution—or at least look on its website—for more details.

Microsoft's Office apps are free on smartphones, too. On an iPhone or Android phone, you can download the Office mobile apps to open, create, and edit documents for free.

On an iPad or Android tablet, these apps will only let you create and edit documents if you have a "device with a screen size smaller than 10.1 inches." On a larger tablet, you can install these apps to view documents, but you'll need a paid subscription to create and edit them.

In practice, this means Word, Excel, and PowerPoint offer a full experience for free on the iPad Mini and older 9.7-inch iPads. You'll need a paid subscription to get document-editing capabilities an iPad Pro or newer 10.2-inch iPads.

Microsoft 365 Home subscriptions are meant to be shared among multiple people. The $70 per year version offers Office for a single person, while the $100 per year subscription offers Office for up to six people. You'll get the full experience, with Office for Windows PCs, Macs, iPads, and other devices.

Anyone who pays for Microsoft 365 Home (formerly known as Office 365 Home) can share it with up to five other Microsoft accounts. It's very convenient: Sharing is managed through an Office "Sharing" page on Microsoft's account website. The main owner of the account can add five other Microsoft accounts, and each of those accounts will receive an invitation link.

After joining the group, each person can sign in with their own Microsoft account to download the Office apps—just as if they were paying for their own subscriptions. Each account will have a separate 1TB of OneDrive storage.

Microsoft says the subscription is meant for sharing among your "household." So, if you have a family member or even a roommate with this service, that person can add you to their subscription for free.

The Home plan is definitely the best deal if you're going to pay for Microsoft Office. If you can split a $100 per year subscription among six people, that's under $17 every year per person.

By the way, Microsoft partners with some employers to offer a discount on Office subscriptions for their employees. Check Microsoft's Home Use Program website to see if you qualify for a discount.

If you're looking for something else, consider choosing a different office application. There are completely free office suites that sport good compatibility with Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files. Here are some of the best:

• LibreOffice is a free and open-source office application for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems. It's similar to the desktop versions of Microsoft Office , and it can even work with and create Office documents in common file types like DOCX documents, XLSX spreadsheets, and PPTX presentations. LibreOffice was based on OpenOffice. While OpenOffice is still around, LibreOffice has more developers and is now the more popular project. You can even make LibreOffice look like Microsoft Office .
• Apple iWork is a free collection of office applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users. This is Apple's competitor to Microsoft Office, and it used to be paid software before Apple made it free. Windows PC users can access a web-based version of iWork through the iCloud website, too.
• Google Docs is a capable collection of web-based office software. It stores your files in Google Drive , Google's online file storage service. Unlike Microsoft's Office web apps, you can even access Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides offline in Google Chrome.

There are many other alternatives, but these are some of the best.

If you just don't want to pay a monthly fee, you can still purchase a boxed copy of Microsoft Office. However, Office Home & Student 2021 costs $150, and you can only install it on one device.

Microsoft is slated to release a standalone version of Office 2024 , but it has not been released yet. Be sure to keep an eye out for it.

You won't get a free upgrade to the next major version of Office, either. If you're going to pay for Office, the subscription is probably the best deal —especially if you can split a paid plan with other people.

A simple guide to slideshows

Learn what slideshows are, how they’re used, common features, and how to choose a slideshow maker. Get started creating your own slideshows today with Microsoft PowerPoint.

What is a slideshow?

What are slideshows used for.

Meetings and presentations

Slideshows are most frequently used to create professional presentations for business meetings, conferences, and educational purposes. A  slideshow program  allows people to organize content, include visuals, and enhance the overall impact of their message.

Visual storytelling

Because slideshows sequentially display engaging visuals, text, and other multimedia, they’re a strong way to tell a cohesive and compelling narrative from start to finish.

Content creation

Slideshows give content creators a versatile and efficient way to organize information, increase visual appeal, and communicate effectively across different contexts.

Photo and video sharing

Slideshow makers are popular for creating photo and video presentations, especially for events like weddings, birthdays, and vacations. People can add transitions, music, and captions to fully bring the photo-sharing experience to life.

Training and tutorials

Slideshows help break down complex information into digestible chunks with the support of visuals and text, making them ideal for instructional materials, tutorials, and training modules.

Collaborative projects

In collaborative settings, teams use slideshow makers to create joint presentations or reports. The best slideshow makers enable multiple contributors to add their content simultaneously, which helps ensure a cohesive and unified presentation.

What are the features of a slideshow creator?

Slideshow creators vary in what they offer but ideally include:

A library of templates, themes, and images.

If you’re not a designer, this feature is huge. Simply browse the options available in your slideshow maker library to create a polished, professionally designed presentation in a flash. Be sure to confirm that access to the library is free and the images are approved for unrestricted usage.

Audio and video compatibility.

Keeping your audience engaged is key to any successful slideshow presentation. To mix things up, being able to add a multimedia element—like a song or a video clip—will help people stay focused and interested.

Presentation tools.

Handy presenter tools go a long way toward making your slideshow experience seamless. For example, straightforward slide navigation, slideshow keyboard shortcuts, pen and highlighter markup, and adjustable resolution settings.

AI assistance.

With AI revolutionizing content creation, using a slideshow maker that has AI capabilities will enhance efficiency and innovation. Depending on the slideshow app you have, creating an entire slideshow could be as easy as a quick prompt, like “Make a presentation about the benefits of sustainable fashion that has 15 slides.” 

Animations.

Like audio and video, animations give your audience a bit of sensory surprise that can capture their attention. 

Slide transitions.

Add some pizzazz to how you change slides with visual effects like fading, wiping, and zooming. 

Screen recording.

Being able to record your screen in a slideshow maker is helpful when giving an instructional talk, software demonstration, and other types of presentations that require visual aids.

A place to put speaker notes.

Having somewhere to jot a few notes down will help remind you of everything you want to cover as you present.

Different viewing options.

Looking at different views—for example, a presenter view, an audience view, and a high-level view of slide order—is useful when organizing your slideshow’s structure and understanding and preparing for what you’ll see versus what your audience will see.

How do I choose the right slideshow maker?

When choosing a slideshow maker, keep the following questions in mind to make sure you get the most for your money:

Is it scalable with your business?

As your organization grows and changes, it’s important to have flexible technology that adapts to new needs. Having certain features—such as cloud-based collaboration, compatibility with other work apps, and a mobile app—will help ensure that no matter how your business changes, the slideshow maker is up to the task. This also applies to pricing plans. Consider choosing a slideshow app that has a subscription plan (so the software is always up to date), volume-based pricing, or enterprise-level pricing.

Does it have a variety of visual elements?

It’s pretty much a given that a slideshow maker will allow you to add images, but think outside the JPEG box—what other visual elements are available to you? Features like preset themes, free templates, SmartArt, a built-in clip art library, shape tools, background styles, 3D models, and charts and graphs provide diverse ways to switch up how a slideshow looks without relying solely on adding your own images.

Is it easy to use?

You could have the most feature-rich slideshow maker on the market, but if it isn’t easy to use, you probably won’t use it. Or you will, but you’ll be frustrated, waste valuable time, and have difficulty convincing people you work with to use it. As you research slideshow makers, look for videos that show the apps’ interfaces in action to help you decide if they’re intuitive and will have a shorter learning curve.

Does it have collaboration and sharing options?

Because making a slideshow is often a collaborative effort, it’s worthwhile to find a slideshow creator that was designed with this in mind. Pick one that offers editing controls and commenting, as well as the ability to work on a slideshow at the same time as someone else. Having a cloud-based slideshow maker will be key here. You’ll not only save yourself time but also keep things simple by not having multiple versions of the same slideshow.

Explore more about slideshows and slideshow makers

Copilot in powerpoint.

Transform how you make slideshows with the versatile AI in Copilot for PowerPoint.

Improve your presenting skills

Practice presenting with an AI speaker coach to get feedback on body language, repetition, and pronunciation.  

Six slideshow tips and tricks

Read up on tips about how to finesse your slideshows to give your most confident presentations.

Get free PowerPoint templates

Show your style with PowerPoint templates in more than 40 categories.

How to make a branded slideshow

Create a cohesive visual identity for your brand that goes beyond adding a logo to every slide.

Try a photo album template

Relive your favorite memories with photo album templates designed for all your unforgettable moments.

The benefits of visual aids in slideshows

Discover why using visual aids helps communicate ideas and messaging more effectively.

Slideshows that reach all learners

Explore the different ways that people learn and how to include all learning styles in your presentations.

Frequently asked questions

How do i make a good slideshow.

Making a good slideshow in PowerPoint is easy:

Plan what you’d like to include in your slideshow.

Launch your slideshow creator.

Choose the theme you’d like.

Import media.

Add text, music, and transitions.

Record, save, and share your slideshow.

Learn more about how to make a slideshow .

How do I add music to a slideshow?

To add music to a slideshow, first make sure that you’re using a slideshow maker with music compatibility. In PowerPoint, follow these steps:

Open your PowerPoint presentation and select the slide where you want to add music.

Click on the Insert tab in the ribbon menu.

Click on the Audio button and select Audio on My PC.

Browse to the folder on your computer where the audio file is located and select it.

Click on the Insert button.

How do I record a slideshow?

The steps for recording a slideshow in PowerPoint will vary depending on the version that you own. Get help with slideshow recording based on your version. 

What types of files can I add to a slideshow?

File compatibility in PowerPoint includes the use of JPEGs, PNGs, TIFFs, GIFs, PDFs, MP3s, WAVs, MIDIs, MPEG-4 Videos, and Windows Media Videos.  

How do I share my slideshow?

To share your PowerPoint slideshow, follow these steps:

Open your presentation and click Share at the top right of your screen.

If your presentation isn't already stored on OneDrive, select where to save your presentation to the cloud.

Choose a permission level, like Anyone with a link , or maybe just people in your company. You can also control if people can edit or just view the doc. 

Select Apply.

Enter names and a message.

Select Send.

Follow Microsoft

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

A Message From the Assistant Director of Content Development 

The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting  students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page  if you have any questions or comments.

All the best,

Social Media

Facebook twitter.

Best 18 Similar Alternatives to Kahoot | Free and Paid | Updated in 2024

Anh Vu • 01 April, 2024 • 39 min read

🎉 Love Kahoot but it’s a bit too pricey for you? We hear you! We love Kahoot too, but the budget doesn’t allow it.

We’ve made a friendly list of similar alternatives to Kahoot , both free and paid tools. Scroll down to see the pricing plus in-depth analysis for them.

• Pricing Comparison

👇 Kahoot vs. the rest : Dive into our price comparison chart to see which platform is the perfect fit for your budget.

(This pricing comparison for Kahoot alternatives is updated on March 29, 2024 )

About Kahoot

Kahoot is perfect for classrooms, game nights, or just some friendly competition to interact with your friends, co-workers or family members! You can play Kahoot on any digital device, which could be your phone, tablet, or computer! Kahoot is huge, used by 50% of U.S. teachers and over 200 countries across the globe, with a big community and acclaim in many different spheres.

But, Kahoot’s free plan is extremely limited, and their paid plan is expensive, even for businessmen!

• Complaints About Kahoot

Kahoot users have spoken, and we’ve been listening! Here are some of the top concerns they shared 🫵

Table of Contents

• Classmarker
• Poll Everywhere
• Slides with Friends
• And 8 More…

Frequently Asked Questions

Looking for Free Kahoot! Alternative?

AhaSlides – Better tools with better price, to enhance your work environment. Sign up to take free quiz from AhaSlides template library!

10 Free Similar Alternatives to Kahoot

1. ahaslides: an all-rounded free tool for both schools and businesses.

👩‍🏫 Best for: class tests, team meetings, training sessions, and trivia nights. Prices start from as low as 2.95 USD per month .

AhaSlides is an all-rounded free alternative to Kahoot that gives you all the freedom you need to host incredible interactive presentations.

It’s all slide-based and super easy to grip with. Simply build a presentation from the 17 available slide types and share it with your live audience or assign self-paced and let participants do it anytime, anywhere.

AhaSlides Key Features

• A variety of question types with AI slides assistant: live poll , open-ended , word cloud , scale/rating , online quizzes , random team generator , idea board and more…
• Beyond quizzes: AhaSlides lets you build entire presentations. This means you can mix informational slides , tools for survey , tools for brainstorming , and even fun activities for a more well-rounded experience.
• Customisation: Fine-tune your presentation’s look with themes, backgrounds, effects, and branding elements. You can also find inspiration in its user-generated template library!
• Focus on interaction: Features like the spinner wheel , anonymous Q&A sessions , and leaderboards mean engagement to the moon🚀
• PowerPoint integration: You can use AhaSlides as a PowerPoint add-in, and also import existing PPT presentations to AhaSlides. The transition will be so smooth we promise you won’t even need to get out of your comfort zone.

All of this sits at a very reasonable price and a planning system that won’t make your head spin!

Pros of AhaSlides ✅

• It is cheap! – AhaSlides’s pricing starts at $7.95 monthly (annual plan), and its plans for teachers start at $2.95 a month (annual plan) for a standard-sized class.
• The price is actually flexible – AhaSlides never locks you into an annual subscription. Monthly plans are available and can be cancelled at any time. Though, of course, annual plans exist with great offerings.
• Support is there for everyone – Whether you pay or not, our goal is to support your journey as much as possible through knowledge base, live chat, email and community. You always speak to a real human , no matter the query.
• You get unlimited access to AhaSlides AI assistant – We also don’t restrain your queries like other presentation platforms, so you can generate slides in an instant with the AI helper🤖

2. Mentimeter: A Professional Tool For Classroom and Meetings

👆 Best for: Creating interactive lectures and presentations in educational and business settings where fun meets professional. Price starts at $8.99 per month.

Mentimeter is a good alternative to Kahoot with similar interactive elements for engaging trivia quizzes. Both educators and business professionals can participate in real-time, and get feedback instantly.

🔎 Looking to get the most out of Mentimeter as a Kahoot! alternative? We are the Menti Experts, and we’ve got you covered with these tips!

• Top Mentimeter Alternatives in 2024
• AhaSlides – Free Alternative to Mentimeter
• How to Join a Mentimeter Presentation
• How to Insert Links into a Mentimeter Interactive Presentation
• How to Embed Videos to Mentimeter Presentation

Key Features

• Interactive quizzes with multiple types of questions.
• Thousands of in-built templates.
• Live polls and word clouds.

🎊 Try 1 Month Free – Aha Pro Plan

Exclusively, only for Menti Users! Host free events, up to 10.000 participants for the 1st month! Sign up to use AhaSlides 30 days for free! Limited slots only

3. Quizizz: Gamified Alternatives to Kahoot

🎮 Best for: multimedia quizzes and gamification in the classroom.

If you’re thinking of leaving Kahoot, but are worried about leaving that enormous library of amazing user-created quizzes behind, then you better check out Quizizz .

Quizizz boasts over 1 million pre-made quizzes in every field you can imagine. Within a few clicks, you can download one, edit it, host it live for friends or assign it asynchronously for a class at school. It’s easy to use and the friction is minimal.

For teachers without a lot of time on their hands, Quizizz can be a top Kahoot alternative.

4. Canvas: LMS Alternatives to Kahoot

🎺 Best for: People who want to design full courses and monitor individual students.

The only Learning Management System (LMS) on the list of Kahoot alternatives is Canvas . Canvas is one of the best all-in-one education systems out there, and is trusted by millions of teachers to plan and deliver interactive lessons, and then measure the impact of that delivery.

Canvas helps teachers to structure entire modules by breaking them down into units and then into individual lessons. Between the structuring and analysing phases, a pretty staggering amount of tools, including scheduling, quizzing, speed grading, and live chat, give teachers what they need. There’s even an in-built studio for creating videos!

If there’s any tool that seems to be lacking, users can usually find it in one of the app integrations .

Being an LMS of this stature naturally comes with a pretty hefty price tag, though there is a free plan available with limited features.

💡 Are simplicity and ease of use big deals for you? Try AhaSlides for free and create a lesson in minutes! (Check out the template library to create it even quicker.)

5. Slido: Similar Alternatives to Kahoot and Mentimeter

⭐️ Best for: text-based presentations. Slido Pricing starts from 12.5 USD/ month

Like AhaSlides, Slido is an audience-interaction tool, meaning that it has a place both inside and outside of a classroom. It also works pretty much the same way – you create a presentation, your audience joins it and you proceed through live polls, Q&As and quizzes together

The difference is that Slido focuses more on team meetings and training than education, games or quizzes (But they still have Slido games as basic functions). The love of images and colour that a lot of alternatives to Kahoot (including Kahoot) have is replaced in Slido by ergonomic functionality .

The editor reflects on this. You’ll not see a single image while creating on the Slido editor, but you’ll see a good selection of slide types and some neat analytics for after-event summarising.

🎉 Free Alternative to Slido | Pricing and Feature Comparison | 2024 Reveals

6. ClassMarker: Classroom Similar Alternatives to Kahoot

🙌 Best for: no-frills, personalised quizzes. ClassMarker pricing starts from 19.95 USD per month.

When you boil Kahoot down to the bones, it’s mainly used as a way to test students rather than impart new knowledge to them. If that’s the way you use it, and you aren’t too concerned with the extra frills, then ClassMarker might be your perfect, free alternative to Kahoot!

ClassMarker isn’t concerned with flashy colours or popping animation; it knows its purpose is to help teachers test students and analyse their performance. Its more streamlined focus means it has more question types than Kahoot and provides many more opportunities for personalising those questions.

While the basics are all available for free, there’s still a lot hiding behind the paywall. Analytics, certificates, the ability to upload images… it’s all stuff the modern educator might want, but it’s only available for a minimum of $19.95 a month.

7. Poll Everywhere – Similar Alternatives to Kahoot!

✅ Best for: live polls and Q&A sessions. PollEverywhere starts from 10 USD per month.

Again, if it’s simplicity and student opinions you’re after, then Poll Everywhere might just be your best alternative to Kahoot.

This software gives you decent variety when it comes to asking questions. Opinion polls, surveys, clickable images and even some (very) basic quiz facilities mean you can have lessons with the student at the centre, though it’s clear from the setup that Poll Everywhere is far more suited to the work environment than to schools.

Unlike Kahoot, Poll Everywhere isn’t about games. There are no flashy visuals and a limited colour palette, to say the least, with virtually zero in the way of personalisation options.

🎊 Free Alternatives to Poll Everywhere | 2024 Revealed

8. MyQuiz – Live Multiplayer Quizzes 

🤝 Best for: Participant engagement for meetings, learning, promotions and entertainment .

Another great alternative to Kahoot is MyQuiz. It was developed by WaveAccess, a web-based Audience Engagement Cloud Platform for hosting interactive trivia quizzes for various purposes, such as team building, brand promotion, education, and more.

Their product offerings stick strictly to quizzes, you will have to upgrade if you want to add text-based slides or your own branding.

• Advanced quiz builders for customising different question types.
• Multiplayer modes – Options for live multiplayer, team-based and single-player quizzes (Psst: AhaSlides has these for free).
• Set up prizes/coupons for winners.
• YouTube/Twitch streaming integration.

9. Slides with Friends: Interactive Slide Deck Creator

🎉 Best for: Small team buildings and family activities. You can host up to 10 people in the free plan .

A cheaper option for alternatives to Kahoot is Slides with Friends. It provides various pre-made templates, all in a PowerPoint-type interface that ensure learning is fun, engaging, and productive. 

• Interactive quizzing
• Word clouds
• Live polling, pass the mic, soundboards
• Export event results and data
• Live photo sharing

10. CrowdParty: Interactive Icebreakers

⬆️ Best for: Quiz masters who organise quizzes frequently.

Does the colour remind you of some apps? Yes, CrowdParty is an explosion of confetti with the desire to enliven every virtual party. It’s a great counterpart to Kahoot.

• A variety of customisable real-time multiplayer games like trivia, Kahoot-style quizzes, Pictionary and more
• Quick Play mode, or Key Rooms
• Free Live EasyRaffle
• Integration: Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, or a smart TV
• Plenty of quizzes (12 options): Trivia, Picture Trivia, Hummingbird, Charades, Guess Who, and more

8 More Alternatives to Kahoot

11. trivia by springworks: virtual team building inside slack and ms teams.

Best for: Remote meetings and employee onboarding to engage everyone and promote personal connections.

Trivia by Springworks is a team engagement platform designed to foster connection and fun within remote and hybrid teams. The core focus is on real-time games and quizzes to boost team morale.

• Slack and MS Teams integration
• Pictionary , self-paced quiz, virtual water cooler
• Celebration reminder on Slack

12. Brightful: Perfect for Pictionary and Charades

Best for: Social and team-building games, as well as peer-to-peer learning, especially for webinars and virtual conferences.

There is no better language practice quiz maker than Brightful for alternatives to Kahoot. With live polls, games and Q&A, Brightful can make your meeting sessions much brighter.

• Interactive Games, Live Polls, Spin the Wheel and Q&A
• Provide a huge catalogue of games from Trivia to Drawing games
• Instant feedback and insights

13. Quizlet: A Complete Study Tool

Best for : Exams, tests, quizzes, or presentation preparation.

Quizlet is a popular web-based and mobile app learning platform known for its digital flashcards, but it offers much more. It helps students (and anyone seeking to learn) study effectively through various engaging tools and games.

• Flashcards: The core of Quizlet. Create sets of terms and definitions to memorise information. 
• Match: A fast-paced game where you drag terms and definitions together – great for timed practice.
• AI tutor to promote understanding.

14. ClassPoint: A Great PowerPoint Add-in

Best for: Teachers who rely on PowerPoint heavily.

ClassPoint offers gamified quizzes similar to Kahoot but with more flexibility in slide customisation.

It’s designed specifically for integration with Microsoft PowerPoint .

• Interactive quizzes with different question types.
• Gamification elements: leaderboards, levels and badges, and star award system.
• Classroom activities tracker.

ClassPoint Alternatives | Top 5 Tools For Interactive Learning | 2024 Reveals

15. GimKit Live: The Borrowed Kahoot Model

Best for: K-12 teachers who want to motivate students to learn more.

Compared to the goliath, Kahoot, GimKit’s 4-person team takes on the role of David very much. Even though GimKit has clearly borrowed from the Kahoot model, or maybe because of it, it sits very high on our list of alternatives to Kahoot.

The bones of it are that GimKit is a very charming and fun way to get students engaged in lessons). The question offerings it provides are simple (just multiple choice and type answers), but it offers many inventive game modes and a virtual money-based scoring system to keep students coming back time and again.

Quite crucially for ex-Kahoot users, it’s an absolute breeze to use . The navigation is simple and you can go from creation to presentation without a single onboarding message.

16. Quizalize: Quiz-based Learning Tool for Different Subjects

Best for : K-12 teachers who want more types of quizzes to diversify learning.

With 9 question types, Quizalize exceeds Kahoot in terms of offering, making it one of the worthy Kahoot alternatives.

• Quizzes with a twist: Transform your quizzes into fun games with different themes and visuals to choose from.
• Instant feedback: Teachers get a dashboard of live class results as students play, highlighting areas of strength and weakness.

17. Crowdpurr: Real-Time Audience Engagement

Best for: Users looking for a mobile-driven experience in hybrid or remote events.

From webinars to classroom lessons, this Kahoot alternative gets praised for its simple and easy-to-use interface that even the clueless person can adapt.

• Live quizzes, polls, Q&A sessions, and Bingo.
• Customisable background, logo and more.
• Real-time feedback.
• A library of 1000+ original trivia games.

18. Wooclap – A Reliable Classroom Engagement Assistant

Best for : Higher education and classroom engagement.

Wooclap is an innovative Kahoot alternative that offers 21 different question types! More than just quizzes, it can be used to reinforce learning through detailed performance reports and LMS integrations.

Bonus: AhaSlides | Best Similar Alternatives to Kahoot!

Call us biased, but we genuinely believe that AhaSlides is one of the best alternatives to Kahoot out there. It’s simpler, cheaper, more lenient, and more customisable, offering more assistance to presenters. Get started and experience the differences right away:

Looking for a better engagement tool?

You’ll of course have your own gripes with Kahoot. Whatever it is, we hope you’ll find something better! Sign up for free to get the best deal with AhaSlides today!

What are the best fun Kahoot games to play with friends?

The top 15 Kahoot Games are Movie Mania, Music Mayhem, Geography Challenge, Sports Fanatics, Foodie Frenzy, History Buffs, Science Whiz, TV Show Showdown, Video Game Galore, Bookworm Challenge, Pop Culture Party, General Knowledge Extravaganza, Holiday Special, Personalised Quizzes and Riddle and Brain Teasers.

Is there anything similar to Kahoot?

Opt for AhaSlides if you want a much cheaper Kahoot similar alternative but still get to experience rich and diverse interactive features.

Is Quizizz better than Kahoot?

Quizizz might excel in feature richness and price, but Kahoot might still win in terms of ease of use while creating a game-like feel for the participants.

Is there a free version of Kahoot?

Yes, there are, but very limited features! The paid plan from Kahoot is quite expensive, starting from $15 monthly!

Is Blooket better than Kahoot?

Both Blooket and Kahoot are interactive quiz platforms that are popular among educators and students. Blooket is a newer platform that offers a wide range of game modes. It also allows teachers to create their own games or modify existing ones to fit their lesson plans. Blooket’s interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate, and it offers real-time analytics to help teachers track student progress. Blooket may be a better choice, as they’re much cheaper than Kahoot.

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

More from AhaSlides

Zombie colleges? These universities are living another life online, and no one can say why

Stratford University says it will prepare students to “Be the Boss.” But applicants hoping a Stratford education will ensure that future are headed for disappointment: The Virginia school closed two years ago this fall.

Instead, Stratford is one of at least nine shuttered colleges whose names have been resurrected on the web. None of these zombie universities are accredited or cleared to receive federal financial aid – hurdles that signal legitimacy. And their motives are cloaked in a mystery no federal oversight agency seems to have tried to solve.

Kari Kammel, who heads the Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection at Michigan State University, was perplexed by the counterfeit sites. At USA TODAY’s request, she reviewed them and said she suspected identity theft could be at play for some.

“They figured out a way to post something, get students to apply, take application information, take credit card information, take financial aid information,” Kammel said.

Know more about zombie colleges? Tell us about it. We won't use your information without first discussing it with you.

Some of the imposter websites are tied to colleges that shut down long ago, like Morrison University in Nevada, which closed its doors in 2014 , or Jones International, one of the first schools to offer college courses online, which followed in 2015. Others focused on institutions whose demise came recently, including the private Catholic Marymount California University, which closed nearly two years ago.

Brian W.G. Marcotte, the real Marymount California’s final president, was troubled to learn of the new website from USA TODAY. He also was confused: Why would anyone spend so much time and energy creating a replica of the school? With other former staffers, Marcotte sent a cease-and-desist letter sent to the site’s domain registrar, Namecheap Inc., and posted a warning on the actual Marymount website.

“We take it pretty personally that somebody is misrepresenting what we worked so hard for 54 years to create,” Marcotte said. “And to have somebody twisting the reality of where we are right now is very troublesome to us.”

The warning was posted on April 29, and by May 6, the imposter Marymount California website had been taken down. It was one of several changes that came after USA TODAY began asking questions.

But whoever is behind the websites will have an ever-growing pool of schools to emulate as more universities close. And regulators have had mixed success in addressing counterfeit school websites.

King’s College in Charlotte, which closed in 2018, attracted the attention of the North Carolina attorney general in December 2022, according to a local television station. More than a year later, that office is, “working with tech companies to limit the reach of these fraudsters to help prevent others from falling victim to the scam,” according to Olivia Weidie, deputy press secretary, who would not divulge precisely what the website was accused of doing.

That imposter website remains online.

The Federal Trade Commission declined to say whether the websites even fall under its purview. In 2018, the agency fined operators of what appeared to be military recruiting websites, including one at army.com. But those sites were actually mining marketing leads for colleges. The fine, later suspended, was about $12 million, and the operators were required to surrender the domain names for the imposter sites.

The Education Department confirmed that the nine schools identified by USA TODAY were closed and that it didn’t approve the accreditor some of the universities claim. But the agency said it does not oversee unrecognized accrediting agencies or schools that are ineligible for federal aid.

Though a web of connections links many of the closed universities, a nagging question remains: Where is the spider?

Administrators listed on the schools’ websites have almost no digital footprint. Phone numbers lead to prerecorded messages that in turn lead nowhere. Google Street View shows listed addresses often are nondescript office buildings instead of campuses.

The Stratford address, now in Kentucky, is a law office. When asked if it was home to a university, a receptionist there said no.

Online, Stratford provides information about its business, computer science, law and other degrees but posts no list of professors who teach advertised courses or schedule of when classes start. Are they offered online or in person? Does the school admit people on a rolling basis or do new students have to wait until the fall semester to start?

With no indication of whom to ask, I decided to apply to Stratford. I sent in an essay and the $75 application fee. Then, like aspiring university students across the country, all I could do was wait.

Nonexistent students, barely there administrators and a made-up bakery

Former Stratford University students provided the tip about the school’s resurrection because they were worried. The Education Department typically cancels federal financial aid debt for students if their university closes unexpectedly, as happened with Stratford. Some of the students haven’t gotten their debt forgiven yet, they said, and they feared it was because the college appeared to remain viable.

A quick look suggested something was amiss.

When the original Stratford was still open, its homepage featured a smiling dark-haired woman in a pink cardigan alongside the motto “Changing Lives… One Student at a Time.” The new Stratford website features the same woman and motto. The two websites also share a blue-and-white color scheme.

From there, the replica version quickly veers into some unusual new territory. The school’s past president was Richard R. Shurtz, who didn’t return calls or requests for comment. The leader of the replicated website is described as a headmaster, a title seldom used in America. His name? Jonathan Doe.

Tracing titles, backgrounds and images leads down some winding paths.

A reverse image search showed Jonathan Doe’s headshot is in high demand across the internet. He is identified as a speaker at a Norwegian church, the author of a book on currency trading, a dental office patient.

That's because his image is for sale on Adobe’s marketplace, described as a “studio portrait of a confident businessman.”

A review of the school’s “Board of Trusties (sic)” does reference a university president, Silas Hawthorne, and a chief academic officer, Theron Beaumont. Neither could be located in real life despite their unusual names. A blog post says Thaddeus Ellington, the dean of students, used to teach at California Marymount University, but there’s no record of Ellington serving at that college – or any other.

Student profiles also appear to have been fabricated. Some undergrads are described as having played sports for the university, a difficult feat since the original Stratford hadn’t fielded teams for years. Rachel Stevens’ biography mentions her work at her family’s business, the Sweet Moments Bakery in Fairfax, Virginia. There’s no indication such a bakery ever existed.

Stevens’ student profile also is posted on a website called Hozpitality.com – with a “z.” That site is described as a “Social Media and Networking platform focussed (sic) on the Hospitality Industry,” with offices in Canada, Dubai and India.

Another post on that site gives Stratford University a backstory, acknowledging in broken English that it closed two years ago but is now on the upswing.

“Despite early successes, SU encountered challenges leading to a temporary closure in Fall 22,” the post reads in part. “After 46 years of providing unwavering global service and high-quality education. Declining enrollment and financial restructuring needs prompted a difficult decision.”

Hozpitality’s website features posts about eight other closed universities that suggest they remain open. As with Stratford, some address their closure, saying they reopened thanks to an influx of dollars. For three – Colorado Heights, Jones International and Urbana University – the posts say an “EEI investment” made their reopening possible. They don’t specify what EEI is or why it’s interested in funding closed American colleges.

As I continued my reporting, the application pages for several colleges vanished. The replica website for Nyack College also came down after I reached out to Christian & Missionary Alliance, the group that had been affiliated with the former small Christian school. Hannah Castro, a spokeswoman for the group, said that the organization wasn’t aware of the website but that its legal counsel was “handling the situation.”

The state of Colorado was listed on websites as having approved four of the colleges. Megan McDermott, spokeswoman for the state Department of Higher Education, told me that was not the case. Her agency referred the cases to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

Anyone with pocket change can look like a university online

Uncovering who is behind these websites proves to be a tall order. There are no restrictions on who can register sites through .college, .university, .education or .org web addresses − the domain endings used by the counterfeit universities.

They’re also cheap to register. A .education domain name, for example, costs only about $20 for a year via Google. That means anyone can throw up a website that seems like a place offering higher education.

The domain names do set them apart, because most American universities use .edu for their websites. That ending is generally reserved for institutions approved by an accreditor – quasi-governmental bodies certified by the federal government to ensure colleges meet a minimum academic threshold.

None of the zombie universities have been approved by recognized accreditors. A few do claim to be accredited by organizations like Gulf HEC or the United States Learning Commission – none recognized by the federal government.

Though .edu domains require institutions to report who is behind them in public registries, other domain endings do not. What was available for the zombie schools was only the country where the web addresses are or were registered – the U.S., Australia, Iceland and Panama – and how much they cost.

Law enforcement agencies and internet regulators can get access to private domain information. In some cases, they can even force bad actors to take down websites.

That is how Somsak Jinaphan and his company, IDigitalAsset LLC, got caught. They had been tied to several cases of cybersquatting, which involves creating a web address nearly identical to an established business or brand, then offering turn it over or take it down – for a price.

In the mid-2010s, Jinaphan’s company registered a knockoff version of the private liberal arts school Davidson College, under the web address Davidson.College. The college uses Davidson.edu, and it wanted that fake address taken down.

Davidson College’s board of trustees filed a complaint under the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ domain dispute policy. That body oversees web addresses worldwide. In the complaint, the trustees accused Jinaphan of using the counterfeit site to host ads and had put the knockoff url up for sale.

An independent panelist agreed with the school and required Jinaphan to turn the address over to the college.

Back in 2017, Jinaphan also was listed as the owner of the domain stratford.university, according to the domain registry lookup, WHOXY. Jinaphan didn’t respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment, and the website’s current owner has opted to withhold their name.

Martin Calihan, who was the last president of King’s College in Charlotte, faced a situation similar to Davidson’s. He told an NBC affiliate in 2022 that he had spent more than six months trying to get the fake website taken down. The University of North Carolina system in 2023 even sent a cease-and-desist letter. Calihan told the trade publication Inside Higher Ed that he also had set up a website warning of the scam.

Despite those efforts, the copycat version of the King’s College website remains live. That’s likely, Kammel said, because the actual university is closed. Only the owner of a trademark can sue to enforce it, she said, and it’s impossible for a closed business to exercise that right.

Still, Kammel had thought the media attention back then would have caused the website to go dark. Given that it’s still up, she wondered where the money was going for it and the other sites.

I had the same question. I hoped following my application fee to Stratford might begin to offer some clues.

What are these universities? How are they connected?

It had been more than a decade since I applied to any college, but luckily the Stratford application was straightforward. In addition to the essay, it required standard materials such as academic transcripts and proof of English proficiency for international students.

It also asked for a copy of a driver’s license or passport – and the corresponding numbers.

I wanted to see how deep this rabbit hole went, but I wanted to hold on to my identity, so I skipped the field for driver’s license number and uploaded a redacted version of my ID.

For the application fee, I shielded my credit by setting up a temporary card that still allowed me to track transactions. The location to send the fee to was identified only as “Wire Now.” Once I did, I was charged a foreign transaction fee – another sign pointing to offshore operators.

A few minutes later, a confirmation arrived in my inbox.

“Taking the first step is often the most difficult. We congratulate you on that!” the message read. “With the submission of your application, it will take between 3-6 weeks before we return with a decision as we screen through each applicant carefully.”

There was no way to reply to the email, no one named in it and no contact information other than a generic email already present on the university’s website.

I chose Stratford because I had written about its closure, but the process would probably have been the same for any of the other resurrected universities. Every one of their applications asks nearly identical questions: What are your goals in life? Why do you want to attend this university? And what do you hope to achieve with a university education?

They all also request similar identifying information, charge a $75 application fee and warn applicants that their personal information will be stored.

Similarities don’t end with the application forms, either. Jones International and Stratford, for example, use identical language to describe their law programs.

“The Law Center at Stratford University is ranked as one of the top two law schools in the country in offering energy-specific courses, especially those in oil and gas,” reads the Stratford description. Jones International simply subs in “Jones International.”

Perhaps the strongest tie is that someone set up limited liability companies in California under the names of the closed institutions. Some of the companies list EEI Education as their manager, although it’s unclear whether that is the same EEI referenced in the Hozpitality postings. Those companies also share common addresses and business officers, including CEO Teoh Tong Wah and Roy Virgen Jr.

Wah doesn’t have much of a web presence that I could locate. His listed address in Singapore is a massive shopping complex. Virgen would be a different story.

Who raised these universities from the dead?

Virgen is in the business of advising and launching new colleges through his company, American Education Inc. He is listed as the CEO of at least two universities, which include American Management University and Southern Valley University.

Online, Virgen appears to lead a full life. In addition to his role as CEO of several colleges – usually a full-time job – he is identified as an adjunct lecturer at several schools, including two University of California campuses. He also had several acting and producing credits for movies, including “Amityville Shark House” and “Bermuda Island.”

I reached out to the Gmail associated with his IMDB account but did not expect a response. Within hours, he called to explain.

The movies, he said, were just for fun. He said his company often helps set up new universities, especially in California. He added that he had let colleges use his name as the leader of their institutions but stopped after some institutions did so without permission.

Asked about the resurrected colleges, Virgen offered contradictory snippets of information. He said in a phone call that a Singapore group had approached him about relaunching the Morrison brand. The group told him it had acquired the university’s name and wanted to bring it back as an accredited college. But in a later email, he said “Morrison University” had sought consultation from his group in 2021, nearly seven years after the school had closed.

On the phone call, he said he worked to set up an LLC under the Morrison University name. The plan was to restart the college in California and offer courses to students from certain professional organizations. That, he said, would allow the school to sidestep the normal bureaucracy associated with opening a new college.

Ultimately, Virgen said the state of California denied the application, which he attributed to news coverage of Morrison’s closure. He noted that his group would sometimes get “strange phone calls” from prospective students with questions about the university’s address, which appears to be an office building in Pasadena, California.

Virgen said he offered to set up a new university under a different name, but the Singapore group was not interested. So he cut ties, he said, and “that’s where I left it at.”

In an initial conversation, Virgen didn’t mention the other LLCs that have his name or his company’s mailing address. Asked via email why many of the closed schools had his company’s street address as their mailing address, he didn’t directly respond.

“We will take more time in vetting future clients as well as letting them know not to use our address on their websites so that our information is not copied by others,” he wrote. “Also, we are looking for ways to get illegitimate sites to stop using our programmatic information or implying that I or my business are consulting with them.”

Virgen was also listed as the CEO of Florida Grace College, a website that was taken down after I asked Virgen about it. He later said in the email that it was a school that hadn’t “got off the ground and so we let the website lapse.”

I asked for the name of his client in Singapore, but he didn’t provide it. He also did not respond when I asked whether he had helped set up California LLCs named after Jones International, Kings College, Southern Vermont College or Urbana University.

Though it was clear these universities were trying to present a distorted reality, Virgen got me no closer to knowing why. It had been two weeks and I still hadn’t heard back from Stratford, either, so it was time for me to try another school.

How many fake colleges are there online?

The Ministry of Higher Education Commission describes itself as a college accreditor, and Jones International, Southern Vermont and Urbana University claim it approved their operations. It’s not recognized by the federal government, but a review of the ministry’s membership rolls online revealed a whole new world of misrepresentations and fake colleges.

The ministry claims to have approved real universities such as Carnegie Mellon and the University of Phoenix – which actually are accredited by federally recognized agencies.

It also claims dozens of clearly fictitious schools, like “University of Wayne State Pennsylvania.” That school’s website appears to be an amalgamation of Wayne State University, a public school in Detroit, and Pennsylvania State University. “New York Central University” evokes New York University, with a logo reminiscent of the iconic NYU torch.

Not listed on the site are the three who claimed it: Jones International, Southern Vermont or Urbana University. Stratford is listed on the ministry’s website, but the ministry isn’t listed on Stratford’s site.

The set of universities that appear on the ministry website were more direct about the information they want from applicants. Questions about what I would do with a university education were replaced by questions about how well-connected I am. One asked whether I was a business owner, a “high profile corporate,” or an option that reads: “I belong to Royal Family.”

I opted for the student option at the City University of Michigan but couldn’t find an actual application form. I closed the window thinking that was the end of it only to receive a call later that same day from Gary Rice, who said he was from the City University of Michigan. I made it clear that I am a reporter, but that did not deter him.

Rice asked what I had studied as an undergrad – creative writing. He then suggested I would be a perfect match for a master’s degree in … creative writing.

Like the first batch of schools, City University of Michigan wanted a record of my past studies and my driver’s license. It also wanted a copy of my passport and didn’t offer alternatives when I explained that I am one of the roughly 50% of Americans who don’t have one.

Rice, who said he was a professor in charge of talking to potential students, said that once I submitted that information I could start my studies right away − no application fee required.

After we hung up, I looked up the college’s address. Google Street View turned up an empty parking structure,

There was another suitor in the wings, though. True to their word, the folks behind Stratford got back to me in about three weeks in an email that landed at 10 p.m. East Coast time. It shared “exciting news.” I had been accepted. It would take me only a year to earn my undergraduate degree at a monthly cost of $2,530.

Nothing on this journey could be simple, though. I had applied to Stratford but the email announcing my acceptance came from Vanguard College, with a web address that corresponded with a Singapore web address.

Vanguard’s website offers little about itself. It does include links to pay for degrees through other colleges, specifically the Swiss School of Management and the International American University, which is accredited in the U.S.

Serena Magnanti, the Swiss School of Management’s vice president, told me it had partnered with Vanguard College “solely for recruitment purposes.”

“Regarding the links on Vanguard College’s website, while we were not previously aware of the details, we are actively investigating the process and purpose behind them,” she wrote. “Please rest assured that we are fully committed to looking into this matter and ensuring transparency.”

The International American University didn’t respond to questions, but a staff member did cc me when they forwarded my email to the university’s president, Ryan Doan.

“Hi RD, FYI,” the message read.

The Vanguard website also features student testimonials via a YouTube video in which they seem to be referencing working with a college coaching company, not an actual college. The acceptance email implored me to reach out if I needed help. So I responded: “I thought I had applied to Stratford University, but I see you are emailing me from an address tied to Vanguard College? Can you explain?”

No response, but days later, I received another email from a Stratford University address from someone new, who urged me to check my email for my acceptance letter.

“I did receive a message from someone saying I was accepted to the university, but it came from Vanguard College,” I wrote on April 29. “Can you explain the connection there? I thought I had applied to Stratford?”

Again, crickets. But by April 30, I had a different kind of answer: The “apply now” button had disappeared from Stratford’s website and the web address for the application page returned a 404 error.

Much like the actual Stratford, the imposter seems to be closed for business − at least for now.

Chris Quintana is a reporter on the USA TODAY investigations team with a background in higher education and student loans. Contact him at  [email protected] , @CquintanaDC on Instagram and X, or by Signal at 202-308-9021.