A comprehensive review of both past and current world-wide accomplishments in the area of combustion synthesis, with special emphasis on the production of oxide and nonoxide ceramic powders, is presented. This review focuses on scale-up and production initiatives undertaken by international companies and institutions. A significant part of this review is dedicated to manufacturing of dense and porous structures involving combination of self-propagating high-temperature technique with other processing methods. Finally, new initiatives and challenges associated with this novel synthesis technique are discussed.