In these years, ordered mesoporous silica materials have shown promising applications in drug delivery system as drug carriers. These carriers with stable mesoporous structure, large surface area, good biocompatibility and tailored size of mesopores exhibit significant property of higher drug loading. However, silica-based mesoporous materials cannot control the release of the loaded drug without modifications. In this paper, we review the recent research work discussing functionalization of mesoporous materials by various components and methods for application in drug delivery systems. All the examples show that these functionalized mesoporous silica-based systems have great potential for a variety of drug delivery applications, specifically in the fields of the drug targeted and controlled delivery systems.