# Apple Keynote

27 Hacker News commenters recommended Apple Keynote and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Keynote as a free, well-designed alternative to PowerPoint that is easy to use and handles files well. Critics object to ads and upsell nags added to the app, and to paid AI features.

## Why people recommend it

- Better than PowerPoint (6 comments): "Keynote is so much better for presentations that PowerPoint it's not even funny." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603496)) "I do them in Keynote and export them to PowerPoint, which is half the battle!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46610894)) "Keynote is worth paying for if it means that I don't have to use PowerPoint" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46601340))
- Clean, simple, well-designed interface (3 comments): "particularly well-designed: everything can be done more simply and more cleanly in Keynote" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50093500)) "The UX of Pages and Keynote are, IMO, far superior to Word/Powerpoint" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50073480)) "Keynote has probably the best UX of any software I’ve ever used." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48989299))
- Free and good enough (2 comments): "Plus Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free on Macs, minus the new paid features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47505248)) "mostly because they are free and they are good enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499474))
- Handles PDFs and converted files well (2 comments): "I personally get by just fine with the built in converter tools in Apple Pages and Keynote" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48343311)) "You can drag a pdf into Keynote, and get a vector quality image." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47513515))

## What people warn about

- Ads and promotions inside the app (5 comments): "It's the latter that's happening here. Imagine spending hundreds of thousands on a Ferrari, starting it up, and … finding an ad on the touch screen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090812)) "Now they're copying the exact same "curated" promotions style that made Windows packin apps intolerable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090689)) "They are only ads when other apps do it, when apple does it they are "Enhanced UI Recommendations"." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090536))
- Upsell nags and paid AI features (5 comments): "Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46601432)) "forced upgrade of Numbers/Pages/Keynote with annoying nags that can't be turned off" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47846370)) "nagware for new AI generated pictures in the "new" Keynote CrEaToR StUdIo app" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48456797))
- Breaks Apple's quality reputation (3 comments): "They’re a luxury goods brand, their whole revenue model is based on the appearance of quality." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090186)) "This is exactly the sort of thing that Apple avoided when it had strong management from Jobs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090175)) "it doesn't feel like Apple to do this in this way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090831))
- Promotions interrupt slideshow work (2 comments): "Just because it's hard to discover things I don't yet own doesn't mean I want them shown to me while I'm making a slideshow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090665)) "the problem is I wanted to do some work and Apple wants me to use my limited attention" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50098554))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Bento HTML presentation tool](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bento.md): 68 recommend
- [Microsoft PowerPoint](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-powerpoint.md): 42 recommend
- [reveal.js](https://hackerapproved.com/p/reveal-js.md): 11 recommend
- [Immersa](https://hackerapproved.com/p/immersa.md): 8 recommend
- [Marp](https://hackerapproved.com/p/marp.md): 7 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Apple Keynote", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-keynote/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).