An exhaustive review on the use of structured stochastic search approaches towards system identification and digital filter design is presented in this paper. In particular, the paper focuses on the identification of various systems using infinite impulse response adaptive filters and Hammerstein models as well as on the estimation of chaotic systems. In addition to presenting a comprehensive review on the various swarm and evolutionary computing schemes employed for system identification as well as digital filter design, the paper is also envisioned to act as a quick reference for a few popular evolutionary computing algorithms. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.