Due to the extensive role of non-isolated high step-up DC-DC converters (NHSDC)s in industrial applications and academic research, many of these pulse width modulation converters have been presented in recent years. For each of these NHSDCs, some claims are introduced to verify its capabilities and features, which has been investigated in some review papers with different frameworks. Dissimilar to previous review papers, which have focused on the classification and derivation of voltage boosting techniques, this paper aims to evaluate the converters from various topological and operational points of view, and determine the superiority of each technique and converter according to applications. Some of these metrics are voltage gain, stresses, ripple, cost, power density, weight, size, control complexity and components count which lead to a comprehensive comparative study. Then, as the main purpose of this paper, effectiveness of these metrics is assessed to show how well they can lead us to the fair comparison results. Moreover, some new figures of merit are proposed in this paper to provide a helpful guideline in power electronic converters comparison studies. Finally, the feasibility discussion of single-and multi-objective figures of merit is followed by general practical conclusion and outlook about the NHSDC structures.