Everyone agrees that Microsoft Powerpoint is so 20th century. It is not the best free presentation tool (In fact it’s not free at all). So what should you use if you want to make 21st century presentations? A few options come close to claim the best free presentation software. In this article, I’m going to show you why Powtoon is the best free presentation software and the best alternative to PowerPoint.

1. ​PowToon - The best free animated presentation software

When it comes to presenting and making presentations, PowToon created a whole new category of presentations.  Forget bullet points, templates and files on your computer.  PowToon is an online tool that allows users (PC or mac) to easily create animated stories for presentations or explainer videos.  Slides are only used to manage content while creating the presentation which when on screen provides an easy to grasp narrative.   If you are a google Drive user, Powtoon integrates well with it.  PowToon is great with voice overs and is best used when you have certain parts of your presentation that need to be well rehearsed play on the screen with your voice already recorded.

2. Google Drive Presentation - The Simple PowerPoint alternative

Google Drive Presentations: one of the best free PowerPoint alternative

We work a lot with Google applications when it comes to replacing Microsoft applications . You may already be familiar with Google Drive.  Google allows users to get started with presentations super quickly.  It looks just like PowerPoint but is easier to use.  The software was built by geeks and it shows.  The aesthetics of the presentations are quite lacking and the templates are too basic.  It is however, very strong on collaborative work.  Creating PowerPoint like slides has never been easier.

Google Drive Presentations: one of the best free PowerPoint alternative

Many use Goole Docs presentation just to create initial presentation docs and then switch over to more robust programs.

3. 280 Slides - Slides that look good

280 Slides: one of the best free PowerPoint alternatives

280 Slides is one of those unknown slideshow apps no-one has heard about but has many users. That’s because presentations made with this program look just like Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, just fancier.  I’s easy to use so users have often created slides in google docs or PowerPoint and then imported them into 280 slides.

A quick search online shows that many of the Presentations created with 280 Presentations end up on Slideshare for some reason.  Other great features include autosave and recovery (also available on PowToon and Google Docs), You can also export to PowerPoint 2007 format for sharing.

4. SlideRocket - Flash quality Templates and slides

SlideRocket is an expensive web-based presentation application.  SlideRocket offers a limited free option with the ability to import from PowerPoint and export to PDF. The higher price comes with many features including sales team collaboration which is quite unique.  The slide transition effects look great on the screen and resemble Flash more than PowerPoint.  You can also integrate content from sites like Flickr and YouTube, as well as utilize plug-ins.  If you want great graphics and lots of templates and are willing to pay up when the time comes. This may be a good option.  It’s still a slideshow, but a good looking one.

5. Prezi - Best free zooming no slides option

Prezi became very popular because it was the first to offer a real alternative to slides. It’s still the best option for what we call “non-linear presentations”.  If you need to hop around a lot this is a good option because Prezi allows the presenter to skip to any part of the presentation with ease (unlike PowerPoitn where users need to move back or forth one slide at a time).

Conclusion

Are you over PowerPoint yet? Clearly it has lost the title of the Best Presentation Software.  Here is what we have to say about the various options:

1. PowToon: Best free presentation software, best animated presentation software
2. Google Docs: Best Simplified PowerPoint Clone
3. 280 Slides: Best for good looking simple Bullet point presentations.
4. Sliderocket: Best Collaborative slideshow software
5. Prezi: Best non-linear presentation software.

Related topics:

• Best free presentation software
• Best Presentation software
• Best PowerPoint alternative
• Best animated presentation software