Objective To evaluate the efficacy of light cured composite resin and glass ionomer cement for wedge shaped defect filling. Methods PubMed, The Cochrane Library (Issue 3, 2016), EMbase, CNKI, CBM, VIP and WanFang Data were searched from inception to April 5th 2016, to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of light cured composite resin versus glass ionomer cement for wedge shaped defect filling. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.2 software. Results A total of 12 studies, involving 3 744 cases of teeth were included. Meta-analysis results showed that there was no significant difference in the two groups on the shedding rate after 2 years (OR=1.19, 95%CI 0.70 to 2.02,P=0.53). But the wear rate of the light cured composite resin group was significantly lower than that of the glass ionomer cement group (Peto OR=0.31, 95%CI 0.22 to 0.44,P<0.000 01). The light cured composite resin group had higher rate of micro leakage or secondary caries rate (OR=1.83, 95%CI 1.11 to 3.01,P=0.02) and incidence of endodontic or periapical lesions (Peto OR=2.84, 95%CI 1.82 to 4.45,P<0.000 01) than the glass ionomer cement group. Conclusion Glass ionomer cement for filling wedge-shaped defects of 2 years after the wear degree is higher than the light cured composite resin, but the occurrence probability of micro leakage or secondary caries and stimulation to pulp are lower than the light cured composite resin. Because of the limitations of the quality of the included studies, the above conclusion still needs to be verified by more high-quality studies.