•Metal and carbon based materials are used to enhance the heat transfer rate in PCM.•Melting point of the PCMs becomes slightly lower for PCM/foam composites.•Higher porosity foams are suitable for convection heat transfer.•Latent heat and specific heats are reduced for PCM/foam composites.•Charging and discharging period of composite PCMs become lower. Phase change material (PCM) is promising media for thermal energy storage owing to its extensive value of latent heat (140–970 KJ/Kg). However, thermal conductivity of PCMs is too low which obstructs energy storage and retrieval rate. In recent days, thermally enhanced PCMs are considered promising materials for efficient heat transfer in many applications. This article designates the review on improved thermal properties and heat transfer of PCMs by using porous materials. Enhanced heat transfer of PCMs can be achieved using extended surfaces (triangular, conical, square, and rectangular fins), heat pipes, and addition of highly conductive nanoparticles (e.g. Cu, Al2O3, Au, SiC, SiO2 and TiO2). Major focus of this article is to study the enhanced heat transfer of PCMs through metallic (copper, nickel, and aluminum) and carbon based (carbon, graphite and expanded graphite) porous materials/foams. Effects of porosity and pore density on heat transfer, thermal conductivity, specific heat, latent heat and charging/discharging time are critically reviewed. Porous materials/foams are reported to be efficient for heat transfer/thermal conductivity enhancement by 3–500 times. Furthermore, correlations to find the effective thermal conductivity of PCM/foam are reported. Important applications of PCM/foam reported by different researchers are also discussed in this paper. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are presented to highlight the research gap in this area.