48.5k stars · MIT · v52.19.1 (2026-08-19)
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.
Why it matters
Your videos are screencasts, which means the moments where you explain a concept — what a subtopic map is, why chunk boundaries matter, how a scalping backtest lies to you — currently have nothing on screen but the app or your face. Building those title cards and explainer frames by hand in SnagIt is exactly the tax that makes video number twelve cost more than video number three. In Slidev they are a Markdown file you keep in the repo: change three lines and you have the Russian deck for the same video, 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 a Grasppy map" PDF is a lead magnet you can put behind an email address in Listmonk, which is the 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 Grasppy screenshot 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 cd slidev-deck npm run dev # live preview at localhost:3030 npm run export # PDF for the lead magnet