BACKGROUND: To compare the clinical efficacy of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) versus surgery for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer through evidence based medicine analysis. METHODS: A systematic search was performed in the PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI and Wan Fang databases to find studies published before June 2020. Two authors independently extracted the data and assessed the eligibility. All of the statistical analyses were performed using Stata 13.0. Subgroup analysis were performed according to the score matching study and operation type (lobectomy, segmentectomy and thoracoscopic assisted surgery). RESULTS: Finally, 14 articles were included, including 15,841 cases in SBRT group and 17,708 cases in operation group. 10 articles used propensity score matching methods for survival analysis. Thirteen were retrospective cohort studies and one was randomized controlled trial. The results of meta-analysis showed that the overall survival rate of the surgery group and the SBRT group was statistically significant. The overall survival rate of the SBRT group (HR=1.51, 95%CI: 1.31-1.74) was inferior to that of the surgery group. In the subgroup analysis of the surgical type, there was no statistical difference between the SBRT group and each surgical type. The difference of overall survival rate between SBRT group and surgery group was statistically significant (HR=1.66, 95%CI: 1.45-1.90) in studies of propensity score matching. There was no statistically significant difference in cancer-specific survival between the surgery and SBRT groups (HR=1.12, 95%CI: 0.83-1.52). CONCLUSIONS The overall survival rate of surgical treatment is better than that of SBRT, but it has no obvious advantages in cancer specific survival rate.