With over millions of years of evolution, viruses can infect cells efficiently by utilizing their unique structures. Similarly, the drug delivery process is designed to imitate the viral infection stages for maximizing the therapeutic effect. From drug administration to therapeutic effect, nanocarriers must evade the host's immune system, break through multiple barriers, enter the cell, and release their payload by endosomal escape or nuclear targeting. Inspired by the virus infection process, a number of virus-like nanosystems have been designed and constructed for drug delivery. This review aims to present a comprehensive summary of the current understanding of the drug delivery process inspired by the viral infection stages. The most recent construction of virus-inspired nanosystems (VINs) for drug delivery is sorted, emphasizing their novelty and design principles, as well as highlighting the mechanism of these nanosystems for overcoming each biological barrier during drug delivery. A perspective on the VINs for therapeutic applications is provided in the end.