Photodynamic therapy has emerged as an alternative to chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer treatment. Nanoparticles have recently been proposed as effective carriers for photosensitizers. Depending on their chemical composition, these can be used for diagnosis and therapy due to the selective accumulation of the photosensitizer in cancer cells in vitro or in tumors in vivo. Multifunctional nanoplatforms combining several applications within the same nano-object emerge as potential important theranostic tools. This review, based on the chemical nature of the nanoparticles will discuss recent advances in the area of non polymeric nanoparticles for photodynamic therapy applications.