Arc additive manufacturing has obvious advantages in additive manufacturing of large structure because of high deposition efficiency and fast additive speed. How to strengthen the advantage of additive manufacturing is one of the most important research trends in the future. In this paper,several typical arc additive manufacturing methods were introduced and the deposition efficiency and performance characteristics of different methods were compared. The comparison result shows that laser induced arc additive and hot wire additive can significantly improve the additive efficiency. By summarizing the effects of grain refining inoculants and welding wire on the properties of deposited parts,it is found that the grain refining inoculants between additive layers could improve the mechanical properties and reduce the defects of deposited parts. In addition,in order to ensure that the workpiece is suitable for different working environments,the research of new additive manufacturing wire development is also very important. Finally,the influence of additive post-treatment on the properties of deposited parts is introduced. It is found that heat treatment,rolling and other post-treatment process can improve the properties of arc additive manufacturing obviously.