Abstract: Thanks to the advancement of carbohydrate chemistry and carbohydrate chemical biology, carbohydrate-based vaccines give us new possibilities in the clinical prevention and treatment of deadly diseases such as HIV and cancer. However, they are still some way from clinical use before overcoming the challenge of immune tolerance and structurally homogeneous synthesis. This review introduces the recent advances of synthetic carbohydrate vaccines, including the advantages and challenges in the treatment of bacterial infectious diseases, AIDS and cancer, in an attempt to provide insights into the study of glycosciences and the development of novel vaccines.