So far, many methods have been tried and applied in the synthesis of Bi-based superconductor powders including conventional solid state reaction route, solution self propagating high-temperature synthesis, co-precipitation route, sol-gel process, freeze-drying,solvent evaporating technique and micro-emulsion based powder synthesis. In this paper, the principles, advantages and disadvantages of these methods, and their applications in Bi-based superconductor powder synthesis are discussed.