<p>Creating robust and highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts is key requirement for advancing proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzer technology. Creating robust and highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts is key requirement for advancing proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzer technology. Despite the fact that noble-metal oxides like IrO₂ and RuO₂ still serve to define benchmark in acidic OER, but their high cost and limited availability, have made the search to find alternative catalyst platforms more urgent. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have increasingly been the focus of interest as acidic OER catalysts platforms due to their modular structures, tunable coordination environments, porosity, and as precursors to structurally programmable derived catalysts. But their direct application is limited by their poor intrinsic conductivity, low acid stability, need for structural reconstruction, and the difference between testing in a lab and using them in a real PEMWE. This review explains the PEM technology and testing gap between traditional electrochemical analysis and real-life device conditions and then compares the acidic OER pathways AEM, LOM and OPM. On the basis of this framework, MOFs are assessed as catalytic platforms with a balanced discussion on their benefits, inherent limitations, and mechanistic behavior, such as reconstruction and phase evolution. Latest developments in precious and non-precious metal-based MOF catalysts are then summarized to find out new design trends and performance factors. Lastly, major challenges and future directions are described to overcome the gap the design of molecularly tunable catalysts and the application of such catalysts in the acidic electrolysis of water. This review aims to make a coherent mechanistic and materials-level understanding to direct the design MOFs for future PEMWE applications.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>