I Built an Open-Source Gamma Alternative After Hitting Presentation Limits in College

Atharva Jagtap — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 16:10:18 +0000

I'm a 2nd year B.Tech student and I need to create a lot of presentations for college assignments.
And like many people, I used Gamma.

It worked—until it didn’t.

Export limits, locked features, restricted editing, and paywalls for things that felt basic. I didn’t want “templates with AI text.” I wanted real control over layout, design, and structure.

So I built Preso — a free, open-source AI presentation generator that gives AI full control of structure without locking users into templates.

What Preso Does

Preso turns raw input into structured, designed slide decks using multiple AI entry points:

AI Generation Engines

Prompt → Deck One sentence → researched topic → structured slides
Text → Deck Messy notes or articles → clean narrative flow
Doc → Deck PDFs or text files → extracted insights

The goal is simple: reduce thinking about slide structure to zero.

Design Without Templates

Most AI presentation tools are template engines in disguise.

Preso is different.

Design Studio

Curated themes: Modern Professional, Luxury Noir, Cyberpunk, etc.
AI color palettes: Generated from mood or brand context
Adaptive layouts: Absolute positioning instead of rigid templates

The AI decides where things should go, not just what text goes where.

A Real Editor (Not a Viewer)

This was non-negotiable.

Professional Editing

Fixed 1920×1080 pixel-perfect canvas
Drag, resize, rotate any element
Floating text toolbars & style managers
Image cropping
AI Remix: edit slides or specific elements using natural language (“Make this slide more minimal”, “Reduce text and add emphasis”)

You can design like it’s Figma—not like it’s a form.

Export Without Friction

Presentations should be usable anywhere.

Preso supports:

Interactive HTML (standalone, no login)
PDF & PPTX (clean and editable)
High-resolution PNGs

No watermark. No limits.

Why Open Source?

Because I didn’t want:

Feature lock-in
Usage caps
A tool that breaks when pricing changes

Preso is completely free and open-source.
You can inspect it, modify it, or self-host it.

Tech Notes

Absolute-positioned layout engine (not template grids)
Fixed-resolution canvas for predictable exports
AI-driven structure + layout decisions
Built to be extended, not boxed in

I intentionally optimized for control over magic.

Live Demo & Code

🔗 Live app: https://preso-ai.vercel.app/
🐙 GitHub: https://github.com/atharva9167j/preso

What I’m Looking For

UX feedback (especially editor interactions)
Performance Issues and Bugs
Edge cases that break layouts
Contributors interested in AI-driven tools

NOTE: This is an early Alpha Release and can be highly unstable

If you’ve felt boxed in by existing AI presentation tools, I’d love your thoughts.

DEV Community: Atharva Jagtap