This paper reviews the main microwave diagnostic techniques and tools adopted in electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) (and others) ion source laboratories, with a special focus on techniques and instruments developed at INFN-LNS. Along with the tools used for optimization of microwave launching (power monitors, spectral analysis, and network analyzers), this paper deals, in particular, with more recent devices on-purpose developed to perform in-plasma analysis, such as absolute density measurements and density profiles retrieval. Among these, the first example of microwave interferometry for ECR compact machines (the VESPRI interferometer at INFN-LNS) will be briefly discussed, in combination with microwave polarimetric techniques based on Faraday rotation detection. More sophisticated microwave techniques are going to be designed and are now at a numerical study stage, e.g., profilometry and imaging via inverse scattering methods (this paper will offer short theoretical bases and first numerical results on 1D profilometry). In the end, the relevance about the implications and interplays of microwave techniques in multidiagnostic systems (microwave, optical, and x-ray domains) will be commented, with a special focus on time resolved microwave measurements and advanced signal processing via wavelet transform, useful for characterization of plasma instabilities.