Plasmon-free surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have attracted tremendous attention for their abundant sources, excellent chemical stability, superior biocompatibility, good signal uniformity, and unique selectivity to target molecules.Recently, researchers have made great progress in fabricating novel plasmon-free SERS substrates and exploring new enhancement strategies to improve the sensitivity of plasmon-free SERS substrates. This review summarizes the recent developments of plasmon-free SERS substrates and specially focuses on the enhancement mechanisms and the enhancement strategies. Furthermore, the promising applications of plasmon-free SERS substrates in biomedical diagnosis, metal ions and organic pollutants sensing, chemical and biochemical reactions monitoring, and photoelectric characterization are introduced. Finally, the current challenges and future research opportunities in plasmon-free SERS substrates are briefly discussed.