Typically, ceramics are sintered at temperatures of above 1000 ℃ by traditional sintering route, resulting in long sintering time and high energy consumptions. The high sintering temperatures adversely affect the interface control, phase stability, and material co-sintering, and thus, it is challenging to co-sinter ceramics and polymers with polymers as the fillers. Cold sintering process, employing an intermediate liquid phase and dissolution–precipitation process, enables rapid densification of ceramics at temperatures ≤300 ℃ , which effectively addresses the co-sintering issue of ceramics and polymers. This review introduces the development of cold sintering process, sintering parameters and cold sintering mechanisms. The application and current status of cold sintering process in ceramic–polymer composites, such as microwave dielectrics, ferroelectrics, lithium-ion batteries, varistors, semiconductors and thermoelectric materials, are discussed in detail. Finally, the challenges and future prospects of cold sintering process are analyzed.