Ribosome profiling is a new emerging technology that uses massively parallel amplification of ribosome-protected fragments and next-generation sequencing to monitor translation in vivo with codon resolution. Studies using this approach provide insightful views on the regulation of translation on a global cell-wide level. In this review, we compare different experimental set-ups and current protocols for sequencing data analysis. Specifically, we review the pitfalls at some experimental steps and highlight the importance of standardized protocol for sample preparation and data processing pipeline, at least for mapping and normalization.