Cancer remains a significant threat to human health today. Even though starvation therapy and other treatment methods have recently advanced to a new level of rapid development in tumour treatment, their limited therapeutic effectiveness and unexpected side effects prevent them from becoming the first option in clinical treatment. With rapid advancement in nanotechnology, the utilization of nanomaterials in therapeutics offers the potential to address the shortcomings in cancer treatment. Notably, multifunctional metal-organic framework (MOF) has been widely employed in cancer therapy due to their customizable shape, adjustable diameter, high porosity, diverse compositions, large specific surface area, high degree of functionalization and strong biocompatibility. This paper reviews the current progress and success of MOF-based multifunctional nanoplatforms for cancer starvation therapy, as well as the prospects and potential barriers for the application of MOF nanoplatforms in cancer starvation therapy.