48.5k stars · MIT · v52.19.1 (2026-08-19) · Track this in Scout
Markdown-driven presentation tool — the explainer slides in a tutorial video, plus a PDF export that doubles as a lead magnet.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
A presentation tool where the deck is a single Markdown file: headings become slides, code blocks get syntax highlighting and line-by-line reveals, and diagrams can be drawn in Mermaid inline. It exports to PDF, to PNG images, and to a standalone web page, and has a presenter view with a drawing layer for annotating while you talk.
What it is good for. In a screencast, the moments that explain a concept — what a subtopic map is, why chunk boundaries matter, how a scalping backtest lies to you — have nothing on screen but the app itself. Building those title cards and explainer frames by hand in a screenshot tool is exactly the tax that makes video number twelve cost more than video number three. In Slidev they are a Markdown file kept in the repo: change three lines and the same video has a deck in a second language, which is the single largest saving available to a bilingual channel. And the PDF export is not a footnote — a ten-slide "how to read this screen" PDF is a lead magnet you can put behind an email address in Listmonk, which is an audience you actually own.
- The deck is text, so a second language, a corrected typo or a whole restructure is an edit and not an afternoon in a design tool
- Exports to PDF and PNG as well as slides — one source, three marketing assets
- MIT, huge community, and Vue components mean you can drop a live screenshot of the app or an animated diagram straight into a slide
- It is a developer's presentation tool. If you want to nudge a box three pixels left, you are editing CSS, not dragging it
- Overkill for a video that is 100% screen recording — this earns its place only where you actually explain concepts
- Version 52 means fast-moving releases; pin the version in the project so a reinstall next spring does not restyle your old decks
A Node project on your Mac, one folder per video, checked into Git beside the scripts.
npm init slidev@latest
