This work presents a comparative study of numerical methods for solving the elasticity equations in topology optimization problems. A computational framework is developed in MATLAB for solving topology optimization problems using unstructured polygonal meshes in arbitrary two-dimensional domains. Two numerical methods are implemented and compared with the finite element method (FEM) with respect to accuracy and computational efficiency: the recentlyproposed Virtual Element Method (VEM) and the Smoothed Finite Element Method (SFEM). The key characteristic that distinguish these methods from the FEM is that the canonical basis functions are not computed explicitly. The use of appropriate local projection maps allows the extraction of the linear component of the element deformations and, therefore, the computation of the stiffness matrix is reduced to the evaluation of purely geometric quantities. Representative numerical examples, using convex and non-convex meshes, for compliance minimization are presented to illustrate the capabilities of the methods studied.