Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) have become the promising energy source for stationary and portable applications. The design of SOFCs including its structure and its operation are an important part to be properly optimized in order to achieve the best performance. The topic on optimization of SOFC has gained tremendous attention recently in line with the growing applications of fuel cell. This paper involves a literature survey of the application of SOFC in particular the optimization strategies. The strategies are reviewed in detail based on five features, which are the decision variable, objective analysis, constraint, method and tools. The future trends of research related to the optimization for SOFC are also discussed to provide better insight for future research work in this area.@en