Abstract Global concerns about CO2 levels in the atmosphere, energy security, and the depletion of fossil fuel supply have been the key motivation to develop bio-based fuel resources, which leads to promising and potential strategies of renewable and carbon-neutral biofuels. Among biofuels being strongly developed, 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) is a new alternative biofuel candidate since DMF could be synthesized from available and durable lignocellulosic biomass, as well as DMF's physicochemical properties were found to be similar to those of fossil fuels. Therefore, the comprehensive investigation on DMF is very essential before putting DMF into the commercial scale and the engine application. In this current work, the temporal evolutions of laminar flame characteristics including laminar burning velocities, unstretched flame propagation speed, and Schlieren images were critically reviewed based on the comparison of DMF with other fuels. Besides, flame instabilities were also evaluated in detail. Finally, ignition delay times were thoroughly analyzed with the variation of the initial parameters such as temperature, pressure, and equivalent ratio, suggesting that DMF could become the potential fuel for the spark ignition engine. In the future, the experimental studies on the real engines fueled with DMF should be carefully and completely performed to have a comprehensive evaluation of this promising biofuel class.