Bento HTML presentation tool
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 11 presentation tools
Recommended for building and editing slide decks as one self-contained HTML file that works offline and shares easily. Common caveats: no alt text and choppy animations on some machines.
Recommended for building and editing slide decks as one self-contained HTML file that works offline and shares easily. Common caveats: no alt text and choppy animations on some machines.
79 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 68
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 68 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy to edit manually or with agents
“it's very convenient having the ability to let Codex/ClaudeCode generate a whole deck, and then do the last edits myself in the browser”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Tiny Little Office” “I love that you can export JSON, edit it in your favourite text editor and then import it back. Its exactly what I want.”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Tiny Little Office” “I like bentos single html page design, and you can easily edit it manually”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” - Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)”
- Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)”
- Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)”
Single HTML file, easy to share
“Theres something so satisfying about knowing everything I need is in a single file.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” “Love that it's just one HTML file, really easy way to share software.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” “There's no install or cloud login, everything works offline.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” - Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)”
Seamless real-time collaboration via CRDT
“It looks nice and the technical aspect of how sharing/CRDT is implemented is a really great idea!”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” “You can play around in the guestbook. I'm in it right now and you can see me editing things.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” “What I'm most please about is how seamless the CDRT works.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” Interactive HTML content for groups
“HTML is interactive, holds and organises content well, and multiple groups can be self guided in exploring the data and contents.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” “You can play around in the guestbook. I'm in it right now and you can see me editing things.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Choppy animations and freezes on hardware
“My M1 Mac froze in the end (had to hard-reboot), but that was so much fun!”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” “the animations are really struggling on my system here - very slow and choppy”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)” Generic AI-looking design, unmemorable
“I can't bring myself to read about let alone try using products whose landing page is such a cookie cutter AI design”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Tiny Little Office” “Unmemorable, unfocused and boring is what it comes across.”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Tiny Little Office”
Other presentation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other presentation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bento HTML presentation toolThis page | 68 | 11 | 86% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Microsoft PowerPoint | 42 | 55 | 43% | 11 | — | — |
| Apple Keynote | 27 | 25 | 52% | 10 | — | — |
| reveal.js | 11 | 3 | 79% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Immersa | 8 | 1 | 89% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 91 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I love that you can export JSON, edit it in your favourite text editor and then import it back. Its exactly what I want.”
“it's very convenient having the ability to let Codex/ClaudeCode generate a whole deck, and then do the last edits myself in the browser”
“Unmemorable, unfocused and boring is what it comes across.”
“I can't bring myself to read about let alone try using products whose landing page is such a cookie cutter AI design”
“Coupled with bento[0] for slide decks, I think this type of project is a very welcome development”
“feels like it's a hair's breadth from being a Notion competitor”
“HTML is interactive, holds and organises content well, and multiple groups can be self guided in exploring the data and contents.”
“I really appreciate the work that went into this, and the design.”
“it marks the first real world example of a genuine new product built with ai”
“Very cool! FYI I was able to cause all sorts of hell by pinch zooming on mobile safari.”
“there could be a good path to drive mass adoption of the concept”
“There was no way to add alt text, which leads me to believe that accessibility was not a priority.”
“since I'm just viewing it, it's not quite what I want.”
“Fantastic! I have been using HTML for all my slides but this is next level.”
“Absolutely amazing! Thank you for making it free and posting too!”
“The project looks very interesting, thanks for sharing!”
“with a tool like Bento you can edit the HTML file locally”
“I love it! I will absolutely be trying this out and following along.”
“I think this fills an extremely common niche in the corporate world”
“Looking forward to the docx and xlsx version, I'll follow on gh to stay up to date”
“Video also worked better than expected, I love how the video background in the Orbital deck turned out!”
“the animations are really struggling on my system here - very slow and choppy”
“upgrades are pretty seamless so far as the JSON format for the slide data is pretty forgiving”
“I like bentos single html page design, and you can easily edit it manually”
“This is really clever and is taking a direction I hope to see more software taking!”
“My M1 Mac froze in the end (had to hard-reboot), but that was so much fun!”
“It looks nice and the technical aspect of how sharing/CRDT is implemented is a really great idea!”
“This is amazing. I also think this will become more common.”
“Really fantastic out of the box, and timely thinking.”
“the Bento files I've examined include a cloudflareinsights.com beacon”
“Perfect for editing with agents and sharing with coworkers.”
“Love that it's just one HTML file, really easy way to share software.”
“Looks very good and I'm excited to try it out properly.”
“Theres something so satisfying about knowing everything I need is in a single file.”
“There's no install or cloud login, everything works offline.”
“You can play around in the guestbook. I'm in it right now and you can see me editing things.”
“an easily editable presentation -- that's a use case I can understand.”
“What I'm most please about is how seamless the CDRT works.”
“having to sign up for a window manager is pretty weird”
“I do like that the experience is almost exactly like FancyZones!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.