Alginate electrospun composite nanofibers combine the material characteristics of alginate with the structural characteristics of electrospun nanofibers, which makes them be widely used in regenerative medicine fields such as tissue engineering, drug delivery and medical dressings. Alginate electrospun nanofibers with the characteristics of porosity, pore connectivity, large specific surface area, air permeability, liquid absorption, etc., are able to maintain the wet microenvironment of wound healing, and their chemical structures are similar to that of the natural cytoplasmic matrix, which can support cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation, so they become the ideal cell growth matrixes that can be used in the development of functional biomedical materials. In order to develop the ideal multi-functional biomedical materials by electrospinning technology with the alginate, in this review, the shortcomings of alginate electrospinning and the methods to overcome these problems were introduced in detail, and the application trend of alginate electrospun composite nanofibers in biomedical materials were prospected. The objective of this review is to provide theoretical basis for the development and sustainable application of alginate based functional biomedical materials.