Over the last 10 years, 2nd and 3rd generation sequencing technologies have made the use of genomic sequencing within the animal cell culture community increasingly commonplace. Each technology's defining characteristics are unique, including the cost, time, sequence read length, daily throughput, and occurrence of sequence errors. Given each sequencing technology's intrinsic advantages and disadvantages, the optimal technology for a given experiment depends on the particular experiment's objective. This review discusses the current characteristics of six next-generation sequencing technologies, compares the differences between them, and characterizes their relevance to the animal cell culture community. These technologies are continually improving, as evidenced by the recent achievement of the field's benchmark goal: sequencing a human genome for less than $1,000.