Water scarcity and nutrient limitations are some of the major issues farmers face in dryland agriculture. These issues are further compounded by global climate change realities. Considering these challenges and the peculiar fragile nature of drylands, biofertilization is a critical pathway toward sustainable intensification of dryland agriculture. This article systematically reviewed biofertilizer research articles indexed in Scopus database and published between 1936 and 2024. The Scopus keyword co-occurrence network results were validated with an independent dataset downloaded from Dimensions database. Biofertilizer research landscape in global drylands has steadily grown over the decades with an average of 62 publications per decade. The United States and China are the leaders of dryland biofertilizer research in terms of both collaboration and impact. Across databases, China and the United States consistently dominated the publication landscape accounting for 14.0% and 11.7% of total document weight in Scopus and 13.7% and 11.8% in Dimensions. There is a strong emphasis on Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and plant growth-promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR). Particularly, biofertilizers containing AMF play multifunctional roles in nutrient cycling, and drought resilience. Plant growth-promoting Rhizobacteria are prominent in nutrient solubilization, stress-hormone modulation, and disease suppression. Cyanobacteria and Dark septate Endophytes (DSEs) are prominent in restoration of degraded drylands as well as in soil revegetation and improvements. There is equally a strong interconnection between drought mitigation, microbial ecology, and agronomic applications. Through the multifunctional roles of different strains of biofertilizer, the limitations of dryland ecosystems can give way for sustainable and scalable agriculture. Several gaps in dryland biofertilizer literature lie in the absence of standardized microbial soil assessment protocol and long-term trials in dryland systems validating the efficacy of both single strains and microbial consortia. Therefore, we propose a conceptual framework for microbial soil assessment prior to biofertilizer applications to help identify microbial imbalances, and/or deficiencies. This will enable targeted biofertilizer applications matching microbial strains to the context specific need (soil type, native microbial species, plant species, and environmental conditions). Future studies should develop, standardize and operationalize specific thresholds, decision rules, and minimal panels of microbial assays through empirical calibration under diverse dryland conditions for the proposed framework.