Coal-based solid waste mainly includes coal gangue discharged in the process of coal mining and coal washing, and fly ash discharged from coal-fired power plants. Because it cannot be utilised on a large scale, the continuous accumulation of coal-based solid waste caused serious environmental pollution. The improvement of environmental protection requirements makes the utilization of coal-based solid waste become the top priority of the coal industry. Foam ceramics is a new type of porous material with high temperature resistance, excellent performance and a wide range of applications. The use of coal-based solid waste to produce foam ceramics can not only realize the large-scale utilization of coal gangue and fly ash, reduce environmental pollution, but also reduce the cost of foam ceramics production. The main methods of producing foam ceramics from coal gangue and fly ash were reviewed, including foaming method, adding pore former method and the organic foam impregnation method. Different types of foaming agents can react or decompose to generate gas at high temperature, thereby creating pores in the blanks. The pore-forming mechanism of the pore-forming agent was mainly emphasized, including the effect of the amount of pore-forming agent on the pore distribution, pore size and morphology of the foam ceramics, as well as the performance of ceramic foam, such as porosity and compressive strength. The advantages and disadvantages of different preparation methods, the scope of application and main development directions were compared. The foaming method can control the anisotropy of the product, but the requirements for raw materials are relatively high, and the preparation process conditions are not well controlled. The organic foam impregnation method can regulate the morphology and composition of the foam ceramic, but it takes a long time to remove the organics. The pore former method can obtain products with complex shapes and different pore structures, but the pore former is prone to agglomeration. The application progress of foam ceramics in different fields was outlined. For different application fields, the focus of the foam ceramics performance and the requirements for the pore structure are also different. Due to the different complexity of the composition of coal-based solid waste, the development of foam ceramics is hindered to a certain extent. The problems that need to be solved in the production of foam ceramics from coal-based solid waste in the future were pointed out, i.e., to deeply study the material characteristics and sintering activity of coal-based solid waste, strengthen the theoretical study of the pore structure during the formation process, and establish the performance index system and performance standards of different types of foam ceramics produced from coal-based solid waste, so as to provide a reference for the subsequent research and large-scale application of foam ceramic properties.