Recently, soil microbial community assembly has become a hot research field. The Chinese scholars have carried out a lot of researches and published many high—level papers. This paper adopted the bibliometric method to count the number, cited frequency, authors, countries (regions), research institutions, journals and keywords of papers in this research field included in the Web of Science (WOS) core collection database from 2003 to 2022. The principal authors, countries (regions), research institutions, journals and keywords were analyzed through the VOSviewer visualization software. The number of papers published in different countries (regions) was visualized through the Scimago Graphica software. Besides, the research hotspots evolution trend was analyzed through the bibliometrix package. The results show that the Chinese scholars have published 374 papers in this research field from 2003 to 2022, ranking first in the world. According to the annual number of published papers, the research process in this field was roughly divided into three stages. The three stages were respectively named as the embryonic stage (2003—2005), fluctuating development period (2006—2011) and exponential growth period (2012—2021). Zhou Jizhong, Li Xiangzhen and Chu Haiyan were the core authors of this research field. Chinese Academy of Sciences was the core research institution. In addition, Frontiers in Microbiology was the main source journal of WOS database literature. The evolution of research hot words in this field was closely related to the development of sequencing technology. Furthermore, the evolution of sequencing technologies from 454 pyrosequencing to high—throughput sequencing and metagenomic sequencing has advanced the field from the introduction of concepts such as priority effects and neutral theory to the quantitative studies of the relative contributions of deterministic processes and stochastic processes. Based on the systematic description of the research status and research hotspots in the field of soil microbial community assembly from 2003 to 2022, this study proposes some possible important research directions in the future, which will help relevant scholars to deepen their understanding of this research field and provide further insights into the field.