The current COVID‐19 pandemic has a tremendous impact on daily life world‐wide. Despite the ability to dampen the spread of SARS‐CoV‐2, the causative agent of the diseases, through restrictive interventions, it is believed that only effective vaccines will provide sufficient control over the disease and revert societal live back to normal. At present, a double‐digit number of efforts are devoted to the development of a vaccine against COVID‐19. Here, we provide an overview of these (pre)clinical efforts and provide background information on the technologies behind these vaccines. In addition, we discuss potential hurdles that need to be addressed prior to mass scale clinical translation of successful vaccine candidates. A mass vaccination campaign against the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus is likely to be the most effective measure to fight the current COVID‐19 pandemic. Here the current COVID‐19 vaccine development efforts in (pre‐)clinical stage are reviewed.