BACKGROUND: Lung segmentectomy is increasingly used to resect lung nodules. Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) is widely chosen to performing lung segmentectomy, while robotic assisted thoracoscopic (RATS) was also one useful and practical method. There article was intended to compared the short-time outcomes of RATS and VATS in lung segmentectomy. METHODS: The patients with lung nodules underwent segmentectomy by either RATS or VATS from January 2016 to April 2017 were studied. Baseline characteristics and short-time outcomes (dissected lymph nodes, postoperative duration of drainage, postoperative hospital stay, incidence of pro-longed air leak, atrial fibrillation and pneumonia) were compared. RESULTS: 166 patients were included in this study: 81 patients underwent RATS segmentectomy while 85 underwent VATS segmentectomy. The number of lymph nodes dissected in RATS group was more than in VATS group ［(13.07±5.08) vs (10.81±5.74), P=0.010］. The incidence of some postoperative complications such as pro-longed air leak, atrial fibrillation was not significant different between the two approaches. CONCLUSIONS Compared with VATS, RATS has similar safety and operability, and the number of lymphadenectomy is significantly more than that of VATS.