In thermal cracking, an atmosphere of elevated temperature and pressure is used. The first method, the Burton process, was invented by William M. Burton; the oil industry first using it to produce gasoline in 1913.

Catalytic cracking was used from around 1936, and uses a catalyst to aid the process of breaking down petroleum vapour to fractions. Typical catalysts include alumina, silica, zeolites, and various types of clay.

In catalytic cracking, less reactive and therefore more stabile and longer lived intermediate cations are accumulating on the catalysts' active sites generating deposits of carbonaceous products generally (and in many cases inapropriately) known as coke. Such deposits need to be removed (usually by controlled burning) in order to restore catalyst activity. In thermal cracking an overall process of disproportionation can be observed, where "light", hydrogen-rich products are formed at the expense of heavier molecules which condense and are depleted of hydrogen.

Fluid catalytic cracking is now the most commonly used process. The process was used from around 1942, and employs a powdered catalyst. Initial process implementations employed a reactor where the catalyst particles were suspended in a vertical flow of feed hydrocarbons in a so-called fluidized bed. In newer process variants, the contact time between the catalyst and the feed is greatly reduced in order to reduce the amount of coke deposited on the catalyst. The actual reactor is a vertical-flow pipe called "riser" in which pre-heated feed meets hot catalyst particles for fractions of a second before the catalyst is gravitationally separated and transported into a fluidized-bed regenerator where coke is burned to restore catalyst activity and provide the necessary heat for the next reation cycle.

Cracking processes allow the production of "light" products (such as LPG and gasoline) from heavier crude oil distillation fractions (such as gas oils and distillation residues). Fluid Catalytic Cracking (short FCC) produces mostly gasoline, while thermal cracking is currently used to "upgrade" very heavy fractions ("upgrading", "visbreaking"), or to produce light fractions or distillates, burner fuel and/or petroleum coke. Two extremes of the thermal cracking in terms of product range are represented by the high-temperature process called "pyrolysis" (ca. 750-900°C) which produces valuable ethylene, and the milder-temperature "delayed coking" (ca. 500°C) which can produce, under the right conditions, valuable "needle coke", a highly crystalline petroleum coke used in the production of electrodes for the steel and aluminum industries.