# Beamer LaTeX class

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Beamer LaTeX class and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free LaTeX class that produces professional, customisable, git-friendly slides and is widely used for scientific presentations. Critics say adding graphics and animations is hard.

## Why people recommend it

- Widely used for scientific presentations (2 comments): "Both beamer and tikz are very important contributions to science communication." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48646780)) "At least in my field, 90% of presentations are Beamer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47717750))
- Easy to add formulas (2 comments): "In Beamer is too easy to add formulas and difficult to add graphics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48601684)) "Good for math heavy presentation, but adding an animation is hard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596555))
- Superior typesetting and presentations (2 comments): "the better AI models can effortlessly generate Latex/Beamer, a far superior solution for typesetting and presentations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47808434)) "Use the beamer template and get a much more professional, customisable, git-commitable and transferable presentation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50097688))

## What people warn about

- Hard to add graphics or animations (2 comments): "In Beamer is too easy to add formulas and difficult to add graphics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48601684)) "Good for math heavy presentation, but adding an animation is hard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596555))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Florilegium](https://hackerapproved.com/p/florilegium-procedural-flowers-in-latex.md): 14 recommend
- [TikZ](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tikz.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Beamer LaTeX class", https://hackerapproved.com/p/beamer/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).