Best slideshow makers

Many programs treat slideshows as an added feature to a photo-editing bundle. But with Movavi Slideshow Maker, you get an application dedicated to the art of photo slideshows. The Movavi team has put together software that integrates the same type of creativity you’d use when editing an image.

It has two modes: manual and automatic. In the auto mode, you’re able to pick a folder of pictures and select styles for the transitions, music, and titles. With the manual setting, you get complete and total control of your presentation.

The program has tons of features and extras available for download. Plus, you can download more filters, music tracks, and transitions from the Movavi marketplace.

When you’re ready to export, you’re able to do so in all the widely used file formats along with some high-quality formats you won’t see with other slideshow tools. You can also link the program with your YouTube account and upload and share directly with one click.

With all the tools and functionality, this is easily our editor’s choice pick for the best slideshow maker.

What are its best features?

• Offers both manual and automated functionality
• Excellent support system
• Extensive selection of tools

What could be improved?

• Although the interface is easy to use, it’s complex
• Has some issues with performance at times

iMovie is one of the best free movie-making programs available, but is it also one of the best free slideshow makers? With an intuitive interface, a wide range of transitions, and easy syncing with iPhoto, it’s definitely up there.

While iMovie is more about making your own videos, it isn’t hard to use the wide range of tools within the program to set up neat slideshows for presentations. Just import your photos into the program and use the menus to set the photos to remain on screen for a short time. After that, use the timeline for transitions, music, and titles. It even includes features that allow you to put some motion into your photos for more dynamic slideshows.

When you’re ready to show off your work, iMovie is fully equipped to export in the most popular formats. It also integrates well with popular social media sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook.

What are its best features?

• Simple, easy-to-use interface
• Tons of transitions and photo motion features

What could be improved?

• Many tools for slideshows are within menus instead of as readily available buttons
• The templates don’t really work well for slideshows

If you don’t want to use your slideshows for commercial use, PhotoStage is one of the best free slideshow makers for home use. As with many slideshow makers, it works much like video editing software with a timeline and draggable interface – tracks, transitions, and images.

Overall, it is not a complicated application to use. You can click on transitions and images to make changes as expected. But where it shines is in its exporting options. You can create smaller data files for emails or go all out and put your file on Blu-ray. There are plenty of options to compress, change formatting, or the resolution. Plus, you can publish directly to YouTube or on a site in HTML5.

While very basic, it also has some automated functionality that places your images in a slideshow with a selected theme. Just make sure to put all the images in one folder. The program also has some downloadable copyright-free music.

What are its best features?

• No trial, this is completely free for non-commercial usage
• Solid selection of tools
• Lots of export options

What could be improved?

• Transitions aren’t the best, and they could add more
• The interface can be buggy at times

Created in 2014 by Icecream Apps, the Icecream Slideshow Maker is one of the best slideshow makers for Windows 10. Using this program, you can create professional slideshows and output them in common formats like MP4, MOV, AVI, and WEBM to play on any device – and in HD.

This program offers a lot of control over how you present transitions and effects within your presentation. Users can adjust photos individually with just a few clicks and create better engagement with viewers.

It also has a ‘Quick Preview’ feature that allows you to preview changes in your slideshow before application to save time. This helps when you want to try out a variety of transitions and effects. Plus, the program doesn’t require a lot of high-end specs to run, so users with older hardware can rest easy.

What are its best features?

• Allows you to adjust photos individually with different effects
• No restrictions on music or number of photos in full version
• Easy-to-use interface
• The quick preview feature helps to save time

What could be improved?

• The free version only allows 10 photos per slideshow and only WEBM export
• Although you can technically work with an unlimited number of photos on the PRO version, importing a large amount of images might cause problems
• Text sizing can be an issue, and there is no ‘Text’ page available

PhotoStory from MAGIX is one of the best photo slideshow makers for anyone who needs support from templates and help with organizing photos. From the moment you open the program, the wizard can walk you through each phase in creating your presentation.

This program has a solid copyright-free music clip library, and the interface allows you to run two tracks at once for music and narration during your slideshows. Plus, you don’t have to download another program to record the voice tracks as it comes with an integrated tool.

For your photos, the program has a lot of customization tools that give you full control. You can have photos appear when and where you want and adjust their movements and size. There are also a lot of extra graphics, transitions, and music tracks available for free download.

Overall, the program has so many tools and features that it’ll take you a while to learn everything. But the interface is perfect for those who aren’t very technical and would prefer a lot of automation.

What are its best features?

• Extremely easy-to-use
• Perfect for users who are not tech-savvy
• The MAGIX Travel maps feature allows you to create animated maps

What could be improved?

• Limited range of editing features
• Customer support needs improvement

MoShow is an ‘every person’ application that can help you create beautiful slideshows on your mobile device. When you open the application, it immediately displays the featured slideshow templates. Within minutes, you can choose photos and have slideshow previews in multiple styles.

The interface is easy to use. You just tap on the ‘Make a MoShow’ button and the interface will take you to an enlarged version of your camera roll. Selecting and deselecting is done with a quick tap and when you’re ready, just hit ‘Add’.

From there, you’re able to customize your transitions and add in effects. There are cool effects like ‘Pencils’ that make images appear as though they’re being drawn and colored. If you find some favorite effects during your creation process, you can add them to a favorites list.

After creating your slideshow, you can adjust your photos individually and add music from a nice selection of tunes. This makes it one of the best slideshow makers with music. After that, you can instantly share or send it to anyone through messaging apps or social media or save it via cloud storage.

What are its best features?

• Nice selection of slideshows
• Easy social media integration
• Crop, insert text, and photo rearrangement

What could be improved?

• Difficult to edit “Portrait Mode” photos

With 15 million users, PicPlayPost is definitely one of the most popular slideshow applications available for mobile. It makes sense, as this program doubles as a collage and video wallpaper creator and doesn’t have a lot of fluff in its features.

For the slideshow maker, you’re able to create presentations using videos, photos, GIFs, stickers, and you can even integrate photo collages from within the app. At 30 minutes and 365 pics, the slideshows have some limitations, but it’s equipped with app-specific transitions and a lot of music to add to the background.

Text-wise, the app has a lot of cool functionality with animated texts, customized text boxes, and a wide range of fonts and animations. You can also attach your text to moving objects within your pictures and collages and change its perspective. Plus, you’re able to integrate stickers from Giphy into your slideshows with that same functionality.

PicPlayPost comes loaded with transitions that are easy to integrate into your slideshows. It also helps that the app has support for a variety of ratios, so the picture and transition movements don’t look awkward.

Last, if you don’t want to do much tapping, the app has an automated slideshow feature where you can select the photos, and it does the rest.

What are its best features?

• Wide range of transitions and text effects
• Integration with photo collages and GIFs
• Sticker integration from Giphy

What could be improved?

• Free version has watermarks

If you need straightforward slideshow creation on your phone, then PixGram is the perfect application. It’s a 1, 2, 3 process with no crazy themes, stickers, or animations to deal with.

The program integrates with your phone’s photo and video files, and the interface is easy for tapping and selecting photos. Once you’ve selected your photos, you can crop and resize each individually or you can do them all in bulk in either portrait, landscape, or square for social media. You can also sort files for the slideshow from their date stamp or have them all fill or fit the display area.

With the photos organized, there are features to add music, set your presentation or slide duration, add titles, or add one of the many available filters to the entire presentation. PixGram will then render the presentation and save it to your media library as an MP4 where it’s easy to save to cloud or share on social media.

What are its best features?

• Does a good job of fitting pictures into the slideshow
• Has a feature to sort photos by date

What could be improved?

• Music doesn’t play longer than 30 seconds
• Rendering isn’t very fast

Photo Slideshow Director allows you to create professional-looking slideshows on an iPhone or iPad in a matter of minutes. It’s as easy as selecting photos and/or videos, setting background music, and you’ll instantly have a presentation.

However, if you want to do a little more, there are plenty of customization features available. You can select from six themes that automatically adjust the colorization of your photos. It will also apply transitions to your photos, but you can select from 57 different transition effects to give the presentation a little more zest.

When you’re done, this application is great for connecting with a high-definition monitor as it processes photos at a top quality.

What are its best features?

• Wide range of transitions for a mobile app
• Themes do a lot to help with colorization
• Great for sharing via cable connection on a high-quality monitor or TV

What could be improved?

• The interface is a little buggy. Some have stated they have issues uploading photos or photos showing in the slideshow
• Limited export features, and doesn’t integrate with social media

Fastreel is Movavi’s online video editor that doubles as one of the best online slideshow makers available today. So there’s no downloading or installation. Just go to the site, upload your photos, and create professional slideshows. The program is simple, fast, and easy to use, and it’s perfect for beginners or professionals.

For uploads, you can choose from a variety of common file formats like AVI, MKV, MOV, PNG, JPEG, WMV, and even GIFs for a combined total of up to 500 MB. And you can upload from either Dropbox or directly from your computer.

Once you upload, Fastreel takes care of most of the hard work. You can select from a variety of templates specific to different themes and then select your photo slide duration anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds. The template will add transitions, but you can customize them to your liking from six different styles. You can also select the aspect ratio of your slideshow based on where you plan to share it.

For music, Fastreel has a comprehensive selection of royalty-free music files to choose from. Or you can upload your own audio file to create something more personal.

Overall, the interface is intuitive and runs via drag and drop or you can click to find your files directly. It’s the perfect solution for anyone who needs a free slideshow maker and doesn’t want to download and install software.

What are its best features?

• Allows up to 500 MB of photos or videos for upload
• Integrates with other Movavi tools
• Slide duration goes all the way to 10 seconds
• Add music from the Movavi collection or upload your own

What could be improved?

• Watermark with the free version

Clideo is a simple, quick solution for anyone who wants to make a slideshow. You can upload files from GoogleDrive, DropBox, or directly from your computer and get working within the interface in moments. The application supports the most popular file formats, including MP3, GIF, AVI, PNG, and MP4, along with some more rare file types.

Within the interface, it’s pretty cut and dry. You can zoom and crop your photos or have them fit to the border. And you can select from four aspect ratios for the whole slideshow. For transitions, you can check a box to add a cross-fade for every image or go with no transition at all.

There’s no music collection to choose from, but you have free rein to upload any song you want. Plus, you’re able to trim the song if you’d like it to start from a certain point. Just don’t expect to fade anything in and out.

When you’re done, just hit the export button and the program will do the rest. You can download the slideshow or save it to GoogleDrive or DropBox. For added security, Clideo deletes input files right after you edit, and the output file gets deleted from their server in 24 hours.

What are its best features?

• Nothing to download
• Easy-to-use interface
• File deletes in 24 hours from their server

What could be improved?

• You have to pay to remove the watermark
• No copyright-free music available

If you’re looking to save some funds, Animoto is a solid free slideshow making option – and you don’t even need to download anything. The developers geared the program towards social media, but it can work to create a slideshow for any situation.

To start, just register a free account and then you have access to all the basic functionality of the application. The fact that the interface is both clean and easy-to-use is what brings most users to Animoto. There are literally thousands of templates to choose in a versatile set of categories, including: Explainer, Amazon Promo, Holiday, Narrative, Motivational, and many more.

After you select a template, you can start uploading photos and videos and then arrange and customize them within your timeline via drag and drop. You can change coloring, add text, and then add music to give the slideshow some life.

When you’re done, you can share your files directly to social media using a link from Animoto. You can also download the slideshow as an MP4.

What are its best features?

• A wide variety of templates to choose from
• Solid library of images and music
• Easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface

What could be improved?

• There’s a limited amount of tools
• The free plan has a watermark on the slideshow
• Limited export options with the free plan

Kapwing’s slideshow maker makes it easy to create slideshows for any occasion no matter the size – a few images or hundreds. The interface is intuitive and processes the videos quickly for an online slideshow editor.

From there, you can drag and drop your photos in the order you want and then select the aspect ratio for the slideshow. Kapwing allows you to set a duration for each clip, and you can also crop each photo individually to get the perfect placement.

This program comes with tons of tools to help you customize your show. You can insert text, titles, animations, custom background colors, stickers, and images from their library. There is also functionality to use a lot of Kapwing’s video editing tools as well.

When you’re ready to export, the program creates a link with a downloadable MP4.

What are its best features?

• Allows you to export videos up to 30 minutes
• Ability to crop clips and photos individually
• Has titles, text, and sticker tools

What could be improved?

• Only 250 MB available for upload
• Videos under 5 minutes have a watermark on the free version
• Limited aspect ratio selection