Hydrodynamic Cavitation, which was and is still looked upon as an unavoidable nuisance in the flow systems, can be a serious contender as an alternative to acoustic cavitation for harnessing the spectacular effects of cavitation in physical and chemical processing. The present chapter covers the basics of hydrodynamic cavitation including the considerations for the bubble dynamics analysis, reactor designs and recommendations for optimum operating parameters. An overview of applications in different areas of physical, chemical and biological processing on scales ranging from few grams to several hundred kilograms has also been presented. Since hydrodynamic cavitation was initially proposed as an alternative to acoustic cavitation, it is necessary to compare the efficacy of both these modes of cavitations for a variety of applications and hence comparisons have been discussed either on the basis of energy efficiency or based on the scale of operation. Overall it appears that hydrodynamic cavitation results in conditions similar to those generated using acoustic cavitation but at comparatively much larger scale of operation and with better energy efficiencies.