Kadal Deck vs Slidev

Name: Kadal Deck
Author: Kadal

Slidev and Kadal Deck are close relatives. Both turn one text file into a web-based deck built with Vite, both are made for developers, and both have a presenter view, live code, drawing, recording and export to PDF and PowerPoint.

The differences are the component framework (Vue or React), the licence (MIT or AGPL), and what happens when you present to a room: Kadal Deck has polls, quizzes and questions from the audience's phones built in, and a hosted service to publish to.

Checked on 23 October 2026 against Slidev's own site. Something out of date? Write to hello@kadal.cc and we'll fix it.

Feature	Kadal Deck	Slidev
Licence	AGPL-3.0, or a commercial licence	MIT
Slides written in	MDX (Markdown with JSX) in one deck.mdx	Markdown with Vue components in one slides.md
Components on a slide	React; Vue, Svelte, Solid, Angular and others as islands	Vue
Presenter view with notes and timer	Yes	Yes
Live code on a slide	Monaco editors; JS and TS run in a Web Worker, Python with Pyodide	Monaco editors and a runner
Drawing, camera and recording	Yes	Yes
Export	PDF, PNG, PowerPoint (pictures or editable), Markdown	PDF, PNG, PowerPoint (pictures or editable), Markdown
Themes	16: three built in, thirteen on npm	Official and community themes on npm, listed in its theme gallery
Polls, quizzes and audience questions	Built in; the audience joins by QR code with no app or sign-in	A community Poll and Quiz addon
Audience follows on their own screens	Built in, through the hosted room or a room server you run	slidev --remote from your machine; a community sync addon for static builds
Hosting	Any static host, or kadal-deck publish to deck.kadal.cc with versions, passcodes and analytics	Any static host, with guides for GitHub Pages, Netlify and others
AI agents	An MCP server, local and hosted	A built-in MCP server
Editor tooling	VS Code extension, Prettier plugin	VS Code extension, Prettier plugin
Around since	October 2026	2021; about 49,000 stars on GitHub

Fair is fair

Where Slidev is the better choice

It is mature

Slidev has been used since 2021 and has about 49,000 stars on GitHub, so most questions already have an answer somewhere. Kadal Deck's first release was in October 2026.

A bigger ecosystem

Its galleries list official and community themes and addons. Kadal Deck has sixteen themes and no third-party ecosystem yet.

The MIT licence

You can build anything on Slidev, a closed hosted service included, without publishing your changes. Kadal Deck's engine is AGPL: running a modified engine as a network service means publishing your changes or buying a commercial licence.

Vue first

If your team writes Vue, Slidev's components are your components. Kadal Deck runs Vue only as islands inside a React deck.

The other side

Where Kadal Deck is different

The room is part of the deck

<Poll>, <Quiz>, <WordCloud> and <Questions> are components. The audience scans a QR code and answers from their phones, and the presenter view ranks their questions by votes.

Publishing with one command

npx kadal-deck publish uploads only the files that changed and keeps every version, so a rollback is instant. Paid plans add passcodes and time spent on each slide.

React and MDX

A slide can use any React component, and Vue, Svelte or Solid components can sit beside it as islands.

In short

Which one to choose

Choose Slidev if you write Vue, want the MIT licence, or want the biggest ecosystem of themes and answers.

Choose Kadal Deck if you want the audience to take part from their phones, or a hosted link with versions and analytics without running anything yourself.

Moving a deck across

npx kadal-deck import slidev converts a Slidev deck, turns its Vue components into React, and writes a report of anything that did not carry over. Slidev's five official themes are ported, under their MIT licence. Coming from Slidev.

Get started See it live Pricing

Sources for Slidev, read on 23 October 2026:

Also compare: Kadal Deck vs reveal.js · Kadal Deck vs Slides.com