Look Good in a Hurry! The Top 5 Alternatives to PowerPoint, Keynote and Prezi

While PowerPoint, Keynote and Prezi have plenty of reliable features, they're clunky and slow compared to some of the new solutions that are out there. Their ubiquitous familiarity could even hurt the impact of your message.

Break away from the tried and true, or tired and boring. The following tools can freshen up your presentation game while giving you the convenience that a web-based creation platform offers.

Slides

Simply named and simply beautiful, Slides is a great way to quickly throw together a great-looking presentation that is both impressive and professional. You’ve got 10 default options to choose from as well as rich customization features like using a photo as a background and customizing typography. Features like presenter notes are even more handy.

Overall, Slides is fun to use, quickly produces great results, highly customizable, and undeniably gorgeous. The only issue is that the creation tools can feel a bit limiting compared to PowerPoint, but the elegance and engaging UI more than make up for it.

Pros: Looks great. Easy to get started.
Cons: May feel limiting.

Google Slides

This Google-created product may have an identical name to the one above, but that is where the similarities end. Google Slides is a no-frills approach to presentation creation, so much so, that it can feel more like a tool for internal organization rather than public presentations.

At the same time, Google Slides offers an efficient way to assemble everything you need. The few templates available can fit many purposes, although they may not blow people away.

The best feature? Google Slides is linked to your Drive and Gmail account, allowing for instant log-ins, quick sharing, and group collaboration with minimal friction.

Pros: Efficient and lightweight. Easy to log-in, share and collaborate.
Cons: Perhaps the least artistic option on this list.

Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck’s name tells you all you need to know. After all, haikus can attain a lot of complexity within a simple format. Their approachability lends to experimentation, creativity and confidence. They also say a lot with a little.

Underneath the slick surface is actually even fewer features than Slides. Think of Instagram for presentations — Haiku Deck is mobile-friendly, its templates and typefaces are fun to play with, and it will have everyone joining in.

Pros: “Anyone can do it” UI encourages experimentation as well as offers attractive templates and typefaces.
Cons: There’s really not much to it, useful only for simple presentations.

Emaze

Flexible, professional-looking, deep and accessible, Emaze clears up a lot of the pain points experienced using PowerPoint or other products on this list. A huge variety of 34 templates is its most impressive feature. Templates are organized logically, too, helping you navigate more intuitively.

Once you have your template set up, altering text, images and animations is simple. You also have access to some cool visual effects. Overall, Emaze has a great balance of intuitive power, control and ease of access.

The only drawback is that the free account is a drag. All presentations will be publicly viewable, and you’ll be limited to the preset fonts and colors. After tinkering with it, though, you just may be convinced to invest in a paid account.

Pros: Intuitive, powerful, 34 great-looking templates to choose from.
Cons: Free account is publicly shared, limits font choices.

Zoho Docs

Like Emaze, Zoho Docs has a good balance of features. It also offers 17 great templates. However, the ability to customize colors and fonts with a free account makes up for the demerits. You can also choose between a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio.

Like Google Drive, you get a huge amount of free storage along with word processors, spreadsheet tools and desktop syncing capabilities. The program also lets you embed your presentations in websites quickly. For people spoiled to Google Drive, Zoho Docs might be a great transition.

Pros: Generous with free features. Decent number of templates. Ability to choose display ratio.
Cons: Largely middle-of-the-road. No one standout features.

CHOOSING WEB TOOLS FOR WEB PRESENTING

Give your presentations a fresh feel and experiment with all of these to decide which one best-fits the needs of your current presentation. In fact, it may benefit you greatly to avoid getting too comfortable with any one of them. They each have their strengths that could complement a given presentation or demo need, while another presentation could benefit from a different choice.

Then again, the world is your oyster, so who are we to tell you how to create? Give all of them a try and have fun!