Assay technologies for apoptosis and autophagy

•Cell death plays a crucial role in cell homeostasis, physiological processes and development.•A disruption in the balance of cell death has been implicated in a wide range of diseases, such as cancers, autoimmune diseases and neurodegerative diseases.•To better understand these diseases, it is necessary to gain an in-depth knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of the cell death pathways.•There are many different methods for quantitative and qualitative analyzing the process of cell death.•Choosing the right cell death assay to measure cell death and acquire meaningful data for research and drug discoveries is a very crucial and challenging task.•In this review, we summarize the pathways of cell death and assays for assessing cell death and discusses advantages and disadvantages of each method, and emphasis on recently developed Q4 fluorescence techniques.