The use of electric vehicles (EVs) has been on the rise. Most of the existing EV smart charging controls can be categorized into three approaches according to their optimization principles: individual, bottom-up and top-down. Until now, systematic comparison and analysis of the different approaches are still lacking. It is still unknown whether a control approach performs better than others and, if yes, why is it so. This study aims to fill in such knowledge gaps by conducting a systematic comparison of these three different control approaches and analyzing their performances in depth. A representative control algorithm will be selected from each control approach, then the selected algorithms will be applied for optimizing EV charging loads in a building community in Sweden. Their power regulation performances will be comparatively investigated. This study will help pave the way for the developments of more sophisticated control algorithms for EV smart charging. © 2022 The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.