Abstract Recent growth in data dimensions presents challenges to data mining and machine learning. A high-dimensional dataset consists of several features. Data may include irrelevant or additional features. By removing these redundant and unwanted features, the dimensions of the data can be reduced. The feature selection process eliminates a small set of relevant and important features from a large data set, reducing the size of the dataset. Multiple optimization problems can be solved using metaheuristic algorithms. Recently, the Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA) has attracted the attention of researchers as a swarm intelligence algorithm based on metaheuristics. An extensive review of papers on GOA-based feature selection algorithms in the years 2018–2023 is presented based on extensive research in the area of feature selection and GOA. A comparison of GOA-based feature selection methods is presented, along with evaluation strategies and simulation environments in this paper. Furthermore, this study summarizes and classifies GOA in several areas. Although many researchers have introduced their novelty in the feature selection problem, many open challenges and enhancements remain. The survey concludes with a discussion about some open research challenges and problems that require further attention.