Powered by
Discover the best interactive presentation software, including free tools for presentations, and presentation platforms for video and animated presentations.
Short answer
Static presentation tools allow you to present information using a fixed sequence of slides and a consistent flow to guide readers. Interactive tools use a variety of multimedia elements and storytelling frameworks, letting viewers engage with content at their own pace.
While static tools ensure clarity and structure, interactive presentation tools transform passive viewers into active participants, creating a deeper involvement and boosting engagement.
Check out our resource on why static slides are bad for you.
And here's what a static presentation looks like compared to an interactive one:
Ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of presentation tools out there? I have. But after sifting through the scary pile of interactive presentation tools, I've zeroed in on the features that genuinely elevate your content.
12 must-have features of modern interactive presentation tools:
Template galleries - Template galleries offer a quick start, ensuring your presentation looks polished without spending hours on design.
AI content creation - AI-driven features analyze your content, suggesting optimal layouts and design elements, making your slides both informative and visually appealing.
Personalization - You can tailor your presentations to resonate with specific audiences. This ensures your content speaks directly to the viewer, enhancing engagement and relevance.
Automation - From auto-populating content to personalizing presentations based on viewer data, to tracking engagement, automation tools make your job easier and more efficient.
Real-time collaboration - Teamwork makes the dream work. You can collaborate with team members in real-time, combining insights to craft the perfect presentation.
Integration with other tools - Connect your presentation software with your favorite tools, including CRM systems, prospecting, or sales enablement tools.
Narrated design (Scrollytelling slides) - Turn your slides into a compelling narrative, guiding your audience on a memorable journey.
Animations - Use animations to highlight key messages, transition between topics, or simply captivate your audience.
Annotation capabilities - Whether it's highlighting important points, on-hover labels, or adding on-the-spot insight pop-ups, annotations make your presentation a two-way conversation.
Multimedia content options - Go beyond text—enrich with videos, audios, and interactive elements for a better reader experience.
Role-based permissions - Control who can edit what parts of the presentation, ensuring your presentation remains in trusted hands and its design unbroken.
Analytics and reporting - Track viewer engagement, slide interactions, and feedback, and use these insights to make informed improvements to your presentation and create better future presentations.
In the age where every second counts and distractions are just a click away, interactive presentations are the game-changer. They improve engagement, memorability, and understandability, and support decision-making.
Interactive presentation tools can help transform boring presentations into interesting ones, and change passive viewers into active participants.
If you’re on the hunt for tools that will help you achieve this, let’s explore some of the best interactive presentation software currently available.
Jump ahead to page section
Storydoc is the future of presentations, reimagined with the power of AI. This interactive presentation maker takes your deck and elevates it to a dynamic, immersive story experience.
It uses narrated design, aka scrollytelling, to challenge the norms of traditional slide-based presentations and invite audiences to explore and engage with the content at their own pace.
Storydoc also sprinkles a bit of AI magic, guiding you every step of the way. From automatically applying your branding and generating relevant visuals to making content suggestions, you can get a professional-looking presentation in no time.
Once you’re finished, you can use dynamic variables to automate any number of personalized versions of your deck at scale.
After you hit ‘send’, go to the analytics panel and watch as it fills up with real-time data, providing valuable insights about what’s resonating with your audience and what’s not.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Designed with the challenges of starting a business in mind, Slidebean offers an AI-powered platform that simplifies the pitching process.
You can draft a simple outline in the platform's intuitive content-brief and editor. Once done, Slidebean springs into action, quickly transforming the content into slides that are in line with the established best practices.
But don't mistake speed for lack of control. The AI does the heavy lifting, but you're in the driver's seat. If a slide feels off, you can tweak it. Or, if you're feeling particularly hands-on, you can dive into their fill-in-the-blank templates and craft your presentation.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Visme is a solid choice for crafting presentations from the ground up. You can dive into a vast library of templates tailored for every industry, ensuring your content always feels fresh and relevant.
And if you're all about the visuals, Visme's got you covered with over 1.5 million high-resolution stock images, dynamic charts, and interactive data widgets.
Want to add a personal touch? You can customize decks with your own branded fonts and colors. Plus, with features like presentation notes and a presenter mode, you're always ready to engage your audience, whether it's in a boardroom or a virtual space.
Just a heads-up: while there are tons of design choices, some templates might be more about looking good than being super clear. But with a bit of tweaking, you can get the best of both worlds.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Ludus is a presentation software designed with teamwork in mind. Whether you're co-editing in real-time or sharing assets across teams, Ludus makes the process simple.
You can start with one of their templates or build from scratch. Ludus offers an impressive array of features, a whopping 64 to be precise, that can sometimes be a bit hidden to not overwhelm the casual user.
You can pull in content from platforms like YouTube, Unsplash, and even design tools like Figma. And, if you're looking to add a personal touch, you can record yourself speaking over your slides.
Plus, with features like live collaboration and custom blocks, you can work together with your team on designing slides. It's all about giving you the freedom to mix, match, and create the right presentation for your needs.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Mentimeter is designed to turn passive audiences into active participants, making every presentation a two-way conversation.
With features like dynamic word clouds, live polling, and interactive quizzes, Mentimeter ensures that your audience is not just watching but actively contributing to the discussion.
Whether you're in a corporate setting, an educational institution, or hosting a workshop, Mentimeter promises to make your sessions productive, inclusive, and fun.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Vyond is a platform that helps you create top-notch animated videos that turn even the most complex of messages into relatable, engaging stories.
With a wide range of templates at your disposal, Vyond ensures you've got just the right backdrop, whether you're piecing together a corporate presentation, crafting an explainer video, or designing an educational segment.
The platform's dynamic content integration also lets you jazz up your animations with a mix of images, videos, and even 3D elements. And for those stories that need your unique voice? You can dive into Vyond's voice-over features or add customizable characters.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Genially offers tools that make your presentations, infographics, and other content types truly interactive. It comes with a vast library of professionally designed templates, perfect for every occasion, from corporate pitches to educational lessons.
But Genially's magic doesn't end there. With features that allow dynamic content integration, you can add layers of interactivity, from clickable elements to animated transitions.
And if you're looking to gamify your content? Genially’s got your back here too, ensuring your audience is not just viewing but actively engaging with your content. I mean, you can even create your own escape room right there in the editor!
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Beautiful.ai is a presentation software that uses AI-powered automation to make the process of creating slide decks quicker and easier. It offers smart templates as a starting point, ensuring you're never left staring at a blank slide.
But where it truly shines is in its real-time design adaptation. As you pour your content onto a slide, the platform's AI ensures every element is perfectly placed, every color is on-brand, and every transition feels smooth.
Whether you're piecing together a sales pitch, a quarterly report, or a startup story, Beautiful.ai makes sure it's presented in the best light with features like shared slides, universal updates, and total brand control.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Pitch is a presentation software that focuses on speed, collaboration, and design, wanting to transform the way teams create and share their ideas.
To get started, you can either pick a template or create your own. As you build, the platform offers smart editing features to guide you along the way. You can swiftly integrate photos, icons, logos, and videos, making each slide a visual treat.
Collaboration is seamless, with real-time editing and feedback loops. Sharing your work is as simple as sending a link, and with the added bonus of real-time analytics, you get a clear picture of how your audience interacts with your content.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Zoho Show is a presentation tool offering a modern approach to crafting and sharing presentations. With its sleek, uncluttered interface, it promises and delivers a distraction-free creation experience.
Dive in, and you're greeted with a library of over 100 templates, perfect for everything from your next startup pitch to a business proposal.
Teamwork takes center stage in Zoho Show. Features like real-time slide adjustments, instant notifications, and contextual comments all make collaboration feel seamless. Users can also bring decks to life with animations, custom shapes, infographics, and multimedia integrations.
And if you already have a presentation in another format? Zoho Show ensures a hassle-free transition, smoothly importing PPTX, PPT, and other popular file types.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Free
FlowVella is a presentation software that's all about creating interactive stories. It offers a platform where you can craft slides with rich text, high-quality images, and engaging videos.
Beyond the basics, the ability to embed interactive links and galleries allows for a more immersive experience, while the option to include PDFs makes sure that detailed data is always at your fingertips.
But perhaps its most distinctive feature is the ability to transform iPads into interactive kiosks. This makes it an ideal choice for museums, exhibitions, and other public spaces looking to provide an interactive experience to their visitors.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
SlideDog is a presentation software that brings together various presentation elements into one seamless experience.
Imagine being able to combine PowerPoints, Prezis, PDFs, and other media without the hassle of switching between programs during your presentation. SlideDog makes this possible.
Its beauty lies in the ability to create a custom playlist for all your presentation files and media, ensuring a smooth flow from start to finish. One of its standout features is the live sharing capability, allowing audiences to access presentations in real-time from various devices.
Beyond traditional presentations, SlideDog can also be used as a digital signage solution, perfect for those ever-present screens in stores or waiting rooms that run slideshows on a continuous loop.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Powtoon is where your presentations spring to life. It's a platform that lets you craft animated presentations and videos, blending text, images, and dynamic animations.
Powtoon's drag-and-drop interface ensures that even those without a design background can create decent-looking animations. You can also add voice-overs, integrate interactive elements, or even embed videos directly into your presentation.
Those looking to truly stand out can also play the director with customizable characters, tweaking them to fit their narrative. Powtoon gives you the option to control the hair and body, and even change the outfits!
Finally, the ability to export presentations as videos ensures your message can reach a wider audience across different platforms.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Canva is not just a presentation tool; it's a design powerhouse. Whether you're a seasoned designer or someone who's just starting out, Canva's intuitive interface makes it easy to bring your ideas to life.
The platform offers a wide array of templates, not just for presentations, but for virtually any design need you can think of—from social media posts to business cards. But presentations remain one of its strong suits.
With Canva, you can craft slides that are both visually stunning and impactful in conveying your message. The drag-and-drop functionality, combined with a rich library of elements like icons, images, and fonts, ensures that every slide is a masterpiece in its own right.
But Canva's magic doesn't stop at design. It also offers collaboration features, allowing teams to work together on a design in real-time. Plus, with its cloud-based nature, your designs are accessible from anywhere, anytime.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
Creating an interactive presentation is like piecing together a puzzle. You start with your main idea, then add images, videos, and other interactive elements to bring it to life. It's about making your audience feel involved, not just watching from the sidelines.
With the right mix, you can turn any topic into an engaging experience that sticks. And the best part is that you don't have to be a tech whiz to do it.
Dive into our guide on creating multimedia presentations to get started and see how easy it can be to make presentations that pop.
Choosing the right interactive presentation tool can feel a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. With so many options out there, how do you pick the one that's just right for you? Let's break it down based on your specific needs:
As a one-person army, you need efficiency. Look for tools that are user-friendly and don't come with a steep learning curve. You'd want a platform that offers a variety of templates, so you don't have to start from scratch every time.
Canva is a fantastic choice, offering a wide range of design templates tailored for presentations. It's user-friendly, and even if you're not design-savvy, you can create professional-looking slides in no time.
Your presentations are often the first impression you make, so they need to be top-notch. You'd benefit from tools that are optimized for engagement, integrate seamlessly with CRMs, offer detailed analytics, and allow for real-time edits.
This is where Storydoc truly shines. Unlike traditional slide decks, Storydoc focuses on crafting a narrative that resonates with your audience. It has intuitive design capabilities and emphasis on storytelling, ensuring that your pitches aren't just informative but memorable.
The classroom, whether physical or virtual, thrives on engagement. You'd want a tool that allows you to embed videos, create interactive quizzes, and maybe even throw in some animations to keep things lively.
Genially fits the bill perfectly. It blends creativity with technology, letting educators design interactive educational materials that keep students motivated and make learning genuinely enjoyable.
Try Storydoc interactive presentation maker for 14 days free (keep any presentation you make forever!)
