Sepsis is a major global health problem and represents a challenge for physicians all over the world. The knowledge of sepsis and septic shock is a topic of interest among the scientific community and society in general.New guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock were developed in 2016, providing an update on this area. In Sepsis-3 new definitions for sepsis and septic shock were published.The purpose of this narrative review is to discuss and compare the new criteria of 2016 with the old criteria, purposing at the same time an alternative approach for this topic.