Diabetes mellitus is characterized by loss of glucose homeostasis; altered metabolism of glucose, proteins and lipids. Although a number of effective allopathic medicines are currently available for treatment and management of diabetes, but prevalence of side effects and higher cost poses a big challenge to the goal of pharmacotherapy. Herbs are mine of medicinal agents that are found to be efficacious, cost effective and safe in preventing diabetes and a number of plants have been used in management or treatment of diabetes. Modern pharmacopoeia has a healthy number of plant derived medicines and a large number of medicines from allopathic system are derived from the plant sources. This review aims to assess currently available preclinical and clinical knowledge of medicinal herbs intended for the management of diabetes and their mode of action.