Abstract Present work investigates the natural vibration characteristics of the porous metal foam truncated conical shells with the two interesting elastic restrained boundaries by using the generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method. There are three types of porosity distribution being applied to do the vibration analysis (uniform distribution, nonuniform distribution and nonuniform asymmetric distribution along the thickness direction). In the light of the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT), the theoretical formulations are derived employing Hamilton principle. Two interesting elastic constraint boundary conditions are realized by employing the uniformly distributing artificial springs. The mode shapes and the natural frequencies of the system are determined. The convergence and a larger number of validation investigations are performed by the contrast researches of the present numerical results with those obtained from other literatures for truncate conical shell with C–C, S-S, S-C, S-C, C-S, C-F, F-C, F-S and F-F boundary conditions, respectively. The effects of the porosity, pore distribution characteristic, geometry, boundary conditions of the conical shell and elastic restraint stiffness are studied comprehensively.