Objective To analyze the research status, hotspots of biofilms and periodontitis from 2013 to 2023 by bibliometric methods.

Methods The literatures related to biofilms and periodontitis were searched in the Web of Science (Wos) database, and visualization software such as VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used to analyze the countries or regions, authors, institutions, journals and keywords.

Results A total of 1 821 papers were included, and the results showed that the number of published papers increased year by year. The top three countries with the highest number of publications were the United States, Brazil and China; the top three institutions were Universidade de São Paulo, Harvard University and Forsyth Institute; the authors with the highest number of publications were Feres and Magda; among the top ten journals in terms of the number of publications, Journal of Periodontology had the highest number of publications (87 papers), followed by Plos One (69 papers) and Clinical Oral Investigations (51 papers). Oxidative stress, markers, adjunctive therapy and drug delivery were the main research hotspots; the frontiers mainly focused on quorum sensing, photodynamic therapy, reactive oxygen species, copper nanoparticles, and optical coherence tomography.

Conclusion Researches on biofilms and periodontitis are growing year by year, and future research directions can focus on oxidative stress, adjuvant therapies, quorum sensing and photodynamic therapy.