CaSiO3 is one of the bioactive calcium silicate materials and known as wollastonite. Herewith, for the first time, we have employed sol–gel combustion method to synthesize Ag-doped CaSiO3 using glycine as a fuel. The sintered powders were characterized by ATR-FTIR, XRD and SEM analysis which proved the existence of characteristic functional groups, pure phase formation and flakes, dense morphology with agglomeration, respectively. TEM-SAED analysis confirms that particles are in nano regime with crystalline nature. SBF immersion reveals that pure and Ag-doped CaSiO3 exhibit the good apatite layer formation for 7 and 14 days. Pure and Ag-doped CaSiO3 were evaluated for their antibacterial behaviour against E. coli and S. aureus which reflects the excellent inhibition of microorganisms. MTT assay proves that the prepared 5 wt-% of Ag-doped CaSiO3 exhibits the excellent cellular metabolic activity with MG-63 cells at different concentrations (50–250 μg ml−1) for 24–48 h. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.