Power loss reduction, improvement of voltage profile, system reliability and system security are the important objectives that motivated researchers to use custom power devices/FACTS devices in power systems. The existing power quality problems such as power losses, voltage instability, voltage profile problem, load ability issues, energy losses, reliability problems etc. are caused due to continuous load growth and outage of components. The significant qualities of custom power devices /FACTS devices such as power loss reduction, improvement of voltage profile, system reliability and system security have motivated researchers in this area and to implement these devices in power system. The optimal placement and sizing of these devices are determined based on economical viability, required quality, reliability and availability. In published literatures, different algorithms are implemented for optimal placement of these devices based on different conditions. In this paper, the published literatures on this field are comprehensively reviewed and elaborate comparison of various algorithms is compared. The inference of this extensive comparative analysis is presented. In this research, Meta heuristic methods and sensitive index methods are used for determining the optimal location and sizing of custom power devices/FACTS devices. The combination of these two methods are also implemented and presented.