Enteral nutrition is a nutritional therapy to supply nutrients by the gastrointestinal tract. The approaches of enteral nutrition therapy mainly include oral feeding, tube feeding (nasogastric tube and nasointestinal tube) and gastrostomy. It is vitally important for nutritional therapy to choose reasonable enteral nutrition treatment and to prevent complications. Nasogastric tube and nasointestinal tube are the most commonly used techniques to meet the therapeutic demands of patients. Nasogastric tube and nasointestinal tube are non-invasive, simple, economical and safe. They have been applied in many large and medium-sized hospitals in China. In this paper, the background of nasogastric and nasointestinal tube application in enteral nutrition, their advantages, disadvantages and complications of patients with different diseases are analyzed. The application indications, contraindications and complications of nasogastric tube feeding and nasointestinal tube feeding are compared and recommendation for the nasogastric and nasointestinal tube selection are summarized.