Gamma ships a deck in a minute. HTMLSlides ships one I own. I chose by who sees it.

I build two kinds of decks: client pitches that must look polished by noon, and internal docs that get passed around engineering. Forcing one tool across both meant either too much hand-holding or too much lock-in. Splitting by audience fixed it.

Gamma wins when the deck leaves the building. HTMLSlides wins when the deck lives in a repo. The moment I framed the choice around the recipient instead of the feature list, the decision stopped being a debate.

Gamma (gamma.app)

Best for: AI-generated decks, docs, and webpages from a prompt, all in the browser.

Key features: text-to-deck, themes, charts, export to PPT and PDF, a shareable link with view tracking.

Free plan: a free tier with limits on exports and credits.

Pricing: Plus lands around $8 to $10 a month for more exports and features.

Pros: fast, good-looking by default, easy to send a link instead of a file.

Cons: export friction on free tiers, and your deck lives in their system.

HTMLSlides (htmlslides)

Best for: developer-friendly HTML slide decks built from text or markdown.

Key features: HTML output you can host anywhere, code-friendly blocks, full styling control, no vendor format.

Free plan: a free or freemium tier for basic decks.

Pricing: paid tiers add features; the output stays plain HTML either way.

Pros: portable, lives in your repo, no lock-in, great with code samples.

Cons: less hand-holding, and the visual polish is on you.

My verdict: Gamma for anything a client or prospect sees, because speed and polish beat ownership there. HTMLSlides for internal engineering docs, because a deck you can version-control and host yourself beats a pretty link you cannot grep.

Frequently asked questions:

Q: Can I export Gamma to PowerPoint?

A: Yes, on paid tiers. The free tier restricts how often you can pull a real file.

Q: Do HTMLSlides need coding skill?

A: Less than building slides by hand, but comfort with markdown helps. The payoff is owning the output.

Q: Which is better for a one-off pitch?

A: Gamma. You will finish before the meeting starts and the link just works.