HIGHLIGHTS• This article reviewed the recent progress on material challenges, charge storage mechanism, and electrochemical performance evaluation of supercapatteries.• Supercapatteries bridge the gap between supercapacitors (low energy density) and batteries (low power density). Fig. 1 a Ragone plot of various electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices [43]. b Schematic illustration of charge storage mechanism of EDL capacitor in porous carbon electrode. c Representation of EDLC structures: Helmholtz model, Gouy-Chapman model and Gouy-Chapman-Stern model. Schematic representation of the charge storage mechanisms in pseudocapacitor; d Intercalation (bulk redox) and e surface redox Nano-Micro Lett.(2020) 12:85Page 5 of 46 85 Table 1 Classification of various energy storage devices according to their charge storage mechanisms NFCS non-Faradaic capacitive storage = EDLC storage, CFS capacitive Faradaic storage = pseudocapacitive storage, NCFS non-capacitive Faradaic storage = battery-type storage Device Supercapattery Battery Supercapacitor Hybrid supercapacitor EDLC Pseudocapacitors