<p>Virtual assembly is a cutting-edge digital manufacturing technology that enhances the product assembly process by simulating and optimizing it in a virtual environment, thereby improving the efficiency of feasibility verification and minimizing costs associated with physical trial and error. This technology has significant application value in fields such as aerospace, high-end medical equipment, and automotive manufacturing, and has become a research hotspot in recent years. However, as virtual assembly technology becomes more advanced, the number of related literature is growing, and the content is scattered and overlapping. This state of “information overload” makes it difficult for researchers to provide intuitive and efficient navigation, allowing them to quickly identify key knowledge, cutting-edge directions, or potential partners. This paper utilizes CiteSpace software to analyze 1010 publications on virtual assembly, sourced from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, to understand research developments in this field thoroughly. Firstly, this paper will conduct a statistical feature analysis. Secondly, the visualization software CiteSpace is used to analyze the connections between authors, institutions, and countries. Finally, co-citation and cluster analysis were conducted on the literature to explore the research frontiers in this field, yielding five research frontier topics. Six virtual assembly research hotspots were identified through cluster analysis and keyword co-occurrence. This paper examines advancements in research on virtual assembly through statistical feature analysis and visualization-based scientometric analysis. This study aims to furnish readers with an extensive overview of the field, emphasizing research hotspots and nascent frontiers.</p>