Coumarins have been recognized as anticancer competitors. HDACis are one of the interesting issues in the field of antitumor research. In order to achieve an increased anticancer efficacy, a series of hybrid compounds bearing coumarin scaffolds have been designed and synthesized as novel HDACis, In this review we present a series of novel HDAC inhibitors comprising coumarin as a core e of cap group of HDAC inhibitors that have been designed, synthesized and assessed for their enzyme inhibitory activity as well as antiproliferative activity. Most of them exhibited potent HDAC inhibitory activity and significant cytotoxicity