The article reviews the progress in the development of discharge-pumped soft X-ray lasers. Especially the results of the last decade proved that discharge created plasmas in capillaries are sufficiently uniform to allow for soft X-ray amplification. This enabled the development of efficient, high average power soft X-ray lasers: a table-top capillary discharge laser operating at 46.9 nm has produced millijoule-level laser pulses at a repetition rate of several Hz, with a corresponding spectral brightness comparable to that of a beam line at a third generation synchrotron facility.