Abstract : Optically active spins in solids offer exciting opportunities as scalable and feasible quantum-optical devices. Numerous material platforms including diamond, semiconductors, and atomically thin 2d materials are under investigation, where each platform brings some advantages of control and feasibility along with other challenges. The inherently mesoscopic nature of solid-state platforms leads to a multitude of dynamics between spins, charges, vibrations and light. Implementing a high level of control on these constituents and their interactions with each other creates exciting opportunities for realizing stationary and flying qubits within the context of spin-based quantum information science, as well as investigating mesoscopic quantum systems. Quantum optics, developed originally for atomic systems, provides a very valuable toolbox for this endeavour. In this talk, I will provide a snapshot of the progress and challenges for two contrasting examples for spin-photon interfaces, namely semiconductor quantum dots and confined excitons in atomically thin materials. For the former, I will focus on a method to suppress the magnetic noise of the nuclear ensemble by an effective cooling mechanism. This method yields access to the nuclear sideband resolved regime and coherent coupling between a single electron spin and the nuclear ensemble. For the latter, I will discuss ways to deterministically trap long-lasting confined excitons acting as artificial atoms, as well as their integration into opto-electronic devices.