Friction drilling is a nontraditional hole making process getting tremendous attention recently. In this process, tool is penetrated into the work piece due to the softening caused by the heat, which is developed between tool and the work piece. Materials less than 5mm thickness can be used for friction drilling. Wide varieties of materials such as tool steel, high speed steel, tungsten carbide and H13 steel can be used either with conical profile as friction drilling tool. For improving tool life nanocoating can be applied. This review mainly focuses on various optimization techniques such as Taguchi method and design of experiments, which can be utilized in friction drilling. Surface roughness, conicity and tribological response are also addressed in this study. Various parameters like cutting feed and speed, which play prominent role during friction drilling process are suitably dealt with.