In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), nodes have limited energy and cannot be recharged. In order to tackle this problem, clustering methods are employed to optimize energy consumption, gather data and also enhance the effective lifetime of the network. In spite of the clustering methods advantages, there are still some important challenges such as choosing a sensor as a cluster head (CH), which has a significant effect in energy efficiency. In clustering phase, nodes are divided into some clusters and then some nodes, named CH, are selected to be the head of each cluster. In typical clustered WSNs, nodes sense the field and send the sensed data to the CH, then, after gathering and aggregating data, CH transmits them to the Base Station. Node clustering in WSNs has many advantages, such as scalability, energy efficiency, and reducing routing delay. In this paper, several clustering methods are studied to demonstrate advantages and disadvantages of them. Among them, some methods deal with homogenous network, whereas some deals with heterogeneous. In this paper, homogenous and heterogeneous methods of clustering are specifically investigated and compared to each other. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.