Abstract: Soil microbial functional diversity is an important indicator of the condition and function of soil microbial communities and is also a useful indicator in the process of ecological restoration. We sought to study the effects of different vegetation restoration techniques on microbial functional diversity during ecological restoration in the Hobq Sand Land. Two types of vegetation restoration were compared; natural restoration of Artemisia ordosica and reintroduction of Caragana intermedia, which began in 1995, using a Biolog micro-plate technique with untreated sandy soil as the control. The results demonstrated that: 1) compared to untreated land, vegetation restoration resulted in increases in the rate of soil microbial carbon source utilization and community metabolic diversity. Between the two restoration types, both soil microbial carbon source utilization rate and community metabolic diversity in the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils were higher in sites restored with A. ordosica than in sites restored with C. intermedia. 2) The carbon sources predominantly used by soil microbes in untreated soil were amino acids, amines, and phenolic acids; these were replaced by carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, and polymers as vegetation recovered; these differences were significant. 3) Principal component analysis demonstrated that there were differences in soil microbial metabolic activity among different vegetation restoration systems, in particular, carbohydrates. 4) Soil nitrogen (N) was strongly correlated with microbial functional diversity. Redundancy analysis (RDA) of microbial communities constrained by different soil factors showed that soil organic matter, total N, available K, available N, pH, and total P were important factors determining the rate of metabolism of carbon substrates. It was concluded that natural restoration of the A. ordosica community was better at fostering soil microbial communities capable of using different carbon sources with enhanced microbial metabolic activity than reintroduction of the C. intermedia and the untreated approach.