Photothermal therapy (PTT) has emerged as one of the promising cancer therapy approaches. As a representative photothermal agent (PTA), magnetite possesses many advantages such as biodegradability and biocompatibility. However, photothermal instability hampers its further application. Herein, we systematically synthesized three kinds of ferrite nanoparticles and detailedly investigated their photothermal effect. Compared with Fe3O4 and MnFe2O4 nanoparticles, ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles exhibited a superior photothermal effect. After preservation for 70 days, the photothermal effect of Fe3O4 and MnFe2O4 nanoparticles observably declined while ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles showed slight decrease. Furthermore, in vitro experiment, ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles showed little toxicity to cells and achieved outstanding effect in killing cancer cells under NIR laser irradiation. Overall, through synthesizing and studying three kinds of ferrite MFe2O4 nanoparticles,we obtained ferrites as PTAs and leed about their changing trend in photothermal effect, expecting it can inspire further exploration of photothermal agents.