Ports are important elements in the maritime transport system and thereby contribute in the development of the world’s economy. They can be poles of growth if they are well managed and supervised. Their performance management approach can affect significantly their competitiveness. This paper tries to enlighten on the complexity of the port system and the difficulty to set a single performance management model.  It presents port’s definitions and classifications, discusses a selection of port performance approaches and their limits, and highlight the necessity to use full potential of advanced analytics for a better definition of port performance evaluation program.