In the last decade, users can access their applications, data, and services via the cloud from any location with an internet connection. The scale of heterogeneous cloud environments is continuously growing due to the development of computing-intensive smart devices. A data center is the central processing unit of any cloud environment, and it is made up of hardware-oriented machines known as Physical Machines (PMs) or server and software-oriented machines known as Virtual Machines (VMs). The deployment of a huge number of physical servers as a result of the exponential development in demand for cloud services has resulted in high energy consumption and ineffective resource usage. Efficient resource utilization and minimizing power consumption by any data center have become crucial challenges. Virtual machine consolidation(VMC) is a method of optimizing computing resources by consolidating multiple VMs onto a reduced number of PMs. By consolidating VMs and running fewer physical servers, VM consolidation can lead to reducing power consumption and efficient resource utilization. This review paper presents a comprehensive analysis of cloud computing virtual machine consolidation, exploring various strategies, benefits, challenges, and future trends in this domain. By examining a wide range of literature from the year 2015 to 2023, this review attempts to provide insight into the current state of VM consolidation and its possible effects on the performance and sustainability of cloud computing. The main flaw in the articles is that the various authors focused on different assessment metrics while the emphasis should have been on improving energy efficiency and quality of service for cloud systems. Future research can be aimed at developing a multiobjective system that emphasizes minimizing cloud energy usage without sacrificing service quality, preventing service level agreements with cloud users from being compromised.