What is Slidev?

Slidev is a presentation slide tool built for developers. Its official site describes it simply as "Presentation slides for developers," and that description is the clearest summary of what it is and who it's for: people who write code and want to build slide decks the same way they write software — in plain text, with version control, code blocks, and a real dev workflow instead of dragging boxes around a canvas.

The core idea

Traditional slide software (PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides) is WYSIWYG: you position elements visually. Slidev inverts that. You write slides in Markdown, and Slidev renders them into a presentation. Because the source is text, you get the things developers already rely on:

• Markdown authoring — headings, lists, and content are written as text, not clicked into place.
• Code as a first-class citizen — slides can include syntax-highlighted code, and the site lists configurable code runners, so code on a slide can be more than a static screenshot.
• A real toolchain — the site documents configuration for Vite and plugins, Vue apps, UnoCSS, Monaco, KaTeX, and Mermaid, meaning the deck is built on the same stack as a modern web project.

Who it's for

Slidev targets developers and technical speakers. If your talk is about code, architecture, or a library, and you'd rather keep your slides in a Git repo next to the project than in a binary file, that's the audience this tool is designed around. If you need heavy visual design, precise pixel positioning, or a deck non-technical collaborators will edit in a browser, a conventional slide app is usually the better fit.

What you can do with it

The site's navigation maps out the practical surface area:

There are also galleries for themes and addons, plus showcases and learning resources, so you can see real decks and reuse existing work rather than starting from zero.

Practical notes

• License: Slidev is released under the MIT License, per the site footer.
• Version: The documentation is shown as English (v53.0.0), with Simplified Chinese and Japanese also available.
• For AI/LLM use: The site offers /llms.txt for optimized Markdown documentation and /llms-full.txt for the full documentation bundle — useful if you want to feed the docs into an AI tool.

How to decide

Choose Slidev if you want slides written in Markdown, kept in version control, and built with a web dev toolchain, and if your audience is technical. Look elsewhere if you need a visual editor for non-developers or fine-grained design control without writing code. The fastest way to judge it is to start from the official Get Started guide and build one short deck — the authoring experience will tell you quickly whether the text-first model fits how you work.