Objective To evaluate the clinical effectiveness of laparoscopic and open tension-free hernia repairs in adults. Methods A fully recursive literature search was conducted in PubMed (2002 to September, 2009), EMBASE (2002 to September, 2009), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Issue 3, 2009), CBM (2002 to September, 2009) , CNKI and VIP Chinese Scientific Journals Full-text Database (2002 to September, 2009) in any language. Randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trials of inguinal hernia treated by laparoscopic and open methods in adults were considered for inclusion. The four analyzed outcome variables were chronic pain, long term recurrence, intraoperative complications and postoperative complication. Data related to clinical outcomes were extracted by two reviewers independently. Statistical analyses were carried out using RevMan 5.0 software. Results Eighteen published reports of eligible studies involving 5816 participants met the inclusion criteria. Compared with open methods, laparoscopic inguinal hernia had no significant differences in long-term recurrence rate [OR 1.53, 95%CI (1.00 to 2.34), P=0.05] and postoperative complication rate [OR 0.74, 95%CI (0.52 to 1.05), P=0.09], and had lower tendency chronic pain [OR 0.45, 95%CI (0.34 to 0.59) , Plt;0.000 01] with statistical significance. There were significant differences in intraoperative complications between the two groups [OR 2.15, 95%CI (1.32 to 3.53), P=0.002]. Conclusion Current evidence suggests that laparoscopic hernia repair is superior to open methods in chronic pain .There is no significant difference in long-term recurrence rate and postoperative complications between the two methods. More studies are needed for intraoperative complications and other long-term postoperative complications.