Google Slides
Shares rank 9 of 11 presentation tools by recommenders
Recommended for easy, browser-based slides that need no coding and export to PDF or images. Most common caveat: weak font, SVG and import support compared with PowerPoint and Keynote.
Recommended for easy, browser-based slides that need no coding and export to PDF or images. Most common caveat: weak font, SVG and import support compared with PowerPoint and Keynote.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 31%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not 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
Exports to PDF, images or text
“Embeded slides URL is a great hack from which you can just download as .txt directly.”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “Coordination Headwind: How Organizations Are Like Slime Molds” “Simplest way is create a Google Slides and export a PDF or images for slides”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Is there any simple way to create a website like this?” Simple, no-code browser slides
“Simplest way is create a Google Slides and export a PDF or images for slides”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Is there any simple way to create a website like this?” “It requires no coding, and anyone can play them easily in their browser.”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Google Playground: Create and play custom games” Good enough for common features
“I’m sure it’s not feature complete but it’s good enough!”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices” “I only ever use the 10% most common feature set”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “OpenAI Should Build Slack”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Worse than PowerPoint and Keynote
“Presentations because it's the ugly duckling of the suite”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Sonnet 5.5” “Infinitely better than powerpoint or GSlides.”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Charts built for Chat” “ppt/gslides wrappers are just faster horses”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Show HN: NoPoint – Pitch decks vibe coded instead of clicked (open source)” - Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “OpenAI Should Build Slack”
Weak font and SVG support
“A lot of what is considered brand identity in presentations comes from fonts, which makes Google Docs Slides a non-starter for many”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Font Smuggler – copy hidden brand fonts into Google Docs” “it would be nice if google actually added SVG support to google slides”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Gemini 4 Argon” “I was in Google Slides for 5 minutes, then I tried to import an SVG.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices”
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 tool | 68 | 11 | 86% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Microsoft PowerPoint | 42 | 55 | 43% | 11 | — | — |
| Apple Keynote | 27 | 25 | 52% | 10 | — | — |
| reveal.js | 11 | 3 | 79% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Google SlidesThis page | 5 | 11 | 31% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it would be nice if google actually added SVG support to google slides”
“It requires no coding, and anyone can play them easily in their browser.”
“Presentations because it's the ugly duckling of the suite”
“Infinitely better than powerpoint or GSlides.”
“Embeded slides URL is a great hack from which you can just download as .txt directly.”
“ppt/gslides wrappers are just faster horses”
“Makes me glad I've always avoided doing my work on web platforms.”
“A lot of what is considered brand identity in presentations comes from fonts, which makes Google Docs Slides a non-starter for many”
“pure junk compared to the Keynote”
“I only ever use the 10% most common feature set”
“Slides are 5% of PowerPoint on desktop (Mac)”
“Simplest way is create a Google Slides and export a PDF or images for slides”
“I was in Google Slides for 5 minutes, then I tried to import an SVG.”
“I’m sure it’s not feature complete but it’s good enough!”
“converts the whole slide into an uneditable image”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.