Halide perovskites have been extensively researched in the past decade, and explored in fields stepping out from photovoltaics towards photothermal and thermoelectric energy conversion, light-emission, high-energy electromagnetic radiation detection, memristors/artificial synapses, ferroelectricity, etc. These frontier applications will fundamentally require a benign material platform of great sample quality but easy accessibility. Traditional synthesis of halide perovskites follows a wet chemistry route, that is, dissolving–precipitation through a solution medium. However, commonly used solvents are of high-cost, environmentally unfriendly, and have high treatment complexity and low post-processing convenience. Breakthroughs on solvent toxicity minimization or even solvent exemption can pave a new roadmap to future development of perovskite-based applications. In this work, we discuss new opportunities in solvent-free synthesis including newly researched vapor deposition and mechanochemical methods, as well as other potential insights in this direction.