Laser ranging systems are advanced ranging systems that integrate laser and optoelectronic detection technologies. With advantages such as high resolution, strong anti-interference capability and compact size, they have attracted extensive attention in recent years. At present, laser ranging has been widely applied in fields including autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and military defense. Driven by complex application demands, high detection resolution, fast update rate and long detection range have become the core goals for the continuous iteration and upgrading of laser ranging technology. Optical frequency comb, whose spectrum consists of a series of evenly spaced discrete frequency components with stable phase relationships and which simultaneously provides time-domain pulses with stable spacing, serves as a natural “time–frequency” reference and “photon–radio-frequency” bridge. It has been widely used in precision metrology, high-speed communications, microwave generation and fiber-optic sensing. In recent years, the rapid development of optical frequency comb technology has significantly improved the performance of laser ranging systems, creating new advantages in terms of measurement accuracy, speed and range, and becoming an important breakthrough for extending the functionality and enhancing the performance of next-generation laser ranging systems. This review focuses on laser ranging technologies based on optical frequency combs, provides an overview of the principles, characteristics and development status of optical frequency combs, summarizes typical methods and recent research progress in comb-based ranging, and finally presents a summary and outlook on the current research status and future development of this field.