Terahertz waves have many unique electrical and optical properties, which have significant applications in both civil and military fields, such as physics, biology, public safety inspection, local area communication, information security, environmental monitoring, non-destructive testing and defense technology etc. Terahertz detector is one of the core components in a terahertz system. Therefore, its application is usually determined by the characteristic and performance of the detector. In recent years, there are some major breakthroughs in the development of terahertz detectors. However, there are still technology challenges that limit the application of such device. For example, room temperature terahertz detectors exhibited a large noise equivalent power and low sensitivity. This is in contrast to cooled terahertz detectors, which demonstrated high response rate and low noise equivalent power, but they cannot be miniaturized and are costly. This paper provides a summary and discussion on the recent development and application of terahertz detectors from the aspect of material preparation and device configuration.