news.ycombinator.com• Apr 6, 2026• 1 min read
Zooming UIs in 2026: Prezi, impress.js, and why I built something differentThere are essentially two established ways to use zooming in web interfaces today. They serve different purposes and make different tradeoffs. I built a third one, so I'll try to be fair about what each does well and where it falls short.* Prezi Prezi pioneered the zooming canvas for presentations and remains the market leader in that space. It recently added AI-powered generation and text editing tools. It's a polished product with real traction.But Prezi is a closed platform, not a library. You can't use its zoom engine in your own app. Pricing starts at $15/month for meaningful features, and exporting to PowerPoint flattens all zoom effects into static slides. A recurring complaint from users is that the zooming and panning transitions cause motion sickness. And fundamentally, Prezi uses zoom as a storytelling device between pre-arranged frames. It's not a navigation model. It's a presentation model.* impress.js impress.js brought Prezi-like zooming to the open web. It's a presentat
