Background As an emerging technology, robot-assisted surgical system has some potential merits in many complicated endoscopic procedures compared with laparoscopic surgery. But robotassisted liver resection is still a controversial problem on its advantages compared with laparoscopic liver resection. We aimed to perform the meta-analysis to assess and compare the clinical outcomes of robot-assisted and laparoscopic liver resection. Methods We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase databases, Clinicaltrials, and Opengrey through March 24, 2020, including references of qualifying articles. English-language, original investigations in humans about robot-assisted and laparoscopic hepatectomy were included. Titles, abstracts, and articles were reviewed by at least 2 independent readers. Continuous and dichotomous variables were compared by the weighted mean difference (WMD) and odds ratio (OR), respectively. Results Of 936 titles identified in our original search, 28 articles met our criteria, involving 3544 patients. Compared with laparoscopy, the robot-assisted groups had longer operative time