The genomes of more and more organisms have been sequenced due to the advances in next-generation sequencing technologies. As a powerful tool, computer simulators play a critical role in studying the genome-wide DNA polymorphism pattern. Simulations can be performed both forwards-in-time and backwards-in-time, which complement each other and are suitable for meeting different needs, such as studying the effect of evolutionary dynamics, the estimation of parameters, and the validation of evolutionary hypotheses as well as new methods. In this review, we briefly introduced population genetics related theoretical framework and provided a detailed comparison of 32 simulators published over the last ten years. The future development of new simulators was also discussed.