Abstract: The instability of soil slopes induced by rainfall or the variation of water level is often related to unsaturated transient seepage in soils and the stability analysis of slopes subjected to unsaturated transient seepage has attracted increasing attention in recent years.The purpose was to give a comparison between the limit equilibrium method and the displacement-based FEM for the stability analysis of soil slopes subjected to unsaturated transient seepage.Emphasis was given to the discussions on the utilization of the strength reduction FEM in the stability analysis of slopes considering seepage and some primary results were presented.Topics for the further research in this area were also discussed.