The Stirling power cycle consists of 2 isothermal processes (heat supply and heat removal processes) and two isochoric processes (compression and expansion processes). The past held an extensive amount of research towards improving the performance by varying different parameters and studying the effect on the respective output characteristics. Here a comprehension of all the past research has been discussed concisely to provide a review of the modifications and design considerations that are to be considered for improving the performance of cycle and its applications in various fields of engineering, i.e., Cryogenics, Solar power generation, etc., discussed in the past research. Besides this a summary is included that discusses the optimization and various applications of the Stirling power cycle