Owing to the water crisis, the development of innovative and clean advanced oxidation processes to decompose a variety of harmful organic compounds in wastewater becomes the main challenge for many research teams. Cold discharge plasma is one of the most widely studied and developed processes, owing to its low energy cost and easy to operate. The impact of different factors on the decontamination effectiveness of discharge plasma are detailed in this review. The generation and reaction mechanisms of reactive species in discharge plasma systems have also gained a significant interest and hence discussed. Several potentials and laboratory-scale reactor design recently reported are discussed and schematically presented. The recent combination of discharge plasma decontamination and other processes in both post and pre-treatment configuration are reported. Some applications of water treatment based on discharge plasma at the pilot scale have been addressing.