The availability of drinking water is reducing day by day, whereas the freshwater necessity is tremendously increasing. There is a need for some sustainable water distillation (purification) to overcome this problem. Solar desalination is a technique used to convert brackish or saline water into potable water, and solar still is a useful device to distil brackish water for drinking purposes. Numerous designs of the solar still system have been developed worldwide. Many researchers outlined mathematical terms, performed experiments and validated the outcome from the various types of solar stills by varying the design and operating parameters. In this article, a review of the active and passive solar stills' performance has been carried out.