This study deals with the free vibration analysis of composite sandwich cylindrical shell with a flexible core using a higher order sandwich panel theory. The formulation uses the classical shell theory for the face sheets and an elasticity theory for the core and includes derivation of the governing equations along with the appropriate boundary conditions. The model consists of a systematic approach for the analysis of sandwich shells with a flexible core, having high-order effects caused by the nonlinearity of the in-plane and the vertical displacements of the core. The behavior is presented in terms of internal resultants and displacements in the faces, peeling and shear stresses in the face–core interface and stress and displacement field in the core. The accuracy of the solution is examined by comparing the results obtained with the analytical and numerical results published in the literatures. The parametric study is also included to investigate the effect of geometrical properties such as radius of curvature, length and sector angle of the shell.