Objective To explore the effective constituents from Sonchus arvensis L. and the potential mechanism in treating sepsis by network pharmacology. Methods The chemical ingredients reported in the literature were taken as research objects and Swiss Target Prediction database was used to collect the identify the potential targets of those ingredients. The GeneCards, OMIM and TTD databases were applied to screen the sepsis related molecular targets. The cross targets were obtained and used to construct the active ingredient-disease target network. In addition, the targets were also imported into STRING database to construct a PPI network. Finally, GO and KEGG enrichment analysis were performed on the target genes to predict the mechanism via DAVID database. Results 71 components from S. arvensis L. were obtained, which corresponded to 579 potential drug targets. There were 3437 related targets of sepsis. S. arvensis L. and sepsis shared 272 common targets. The results showed that 1366 terms were found by GO function enrichment, including 245 molecular functions (MF), 1002 biological processes (BP), and 119 cell composition (CC), The KEGG enrichment analysis suggested that 166 signaling pathways were involved. Conclusion The study revealed that TNF, AKT1, IL-6, IL-1β, TP53 and some other targets might be affected by potentially active ingredients of S arvensis L. such as linoleic acid, linolenic acid and oleic acid to regulate the expression of steroids, sphingolipids hormones as well as epidermal factors and chemokines in treating sepsis.