Objective To systematically evaluate the effectiveness of aloe vera and its products (e.g. dressing for external use, and gel) for both acute (e.g. laceration, surgical incision, and burn) and chronic (e.g. infectious wound, and artery and venous ulceration) wounds. Methods With “aloe” and “wound” as the index words, such databases as Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMbase, CBM, CNKI and VIP were searched from the inception to April, 2012 to collect the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about aloe vera or its products for treating acute and chronic wounds. Two authors independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risks of bias. Then meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.0 software. Results A total of 15 RCTs involving 773 participants were included, and all studies were of low quality. There were 8 RCTs which evaluated aloe vera for treating acute wounds (burn, haemorrhoidectomy, and skin biopsy), and no RCT reported the incidence of infection. Compared with silver sulfadiazine, aloe vera products could increase the proportion of healing wounds for patients with burn (RR=1.28, 95%CI 1.03 to 1.60, P=0.03 ); compared with antibiotic cream, aloe vera products could reduce the average healing time for patients with burn (MD= ?12.90, 95%CI ?13.29 to ?12.51, Plt;0.000 01); compared with conventional therapy, aloe vera gel could increase the proportion of healed patients with acute surgical wounds (RR=16.33, 95%CI 3.46 to 77.15, P=0.000 4), and could increase the proportion of healed patients with pressure sores (RR=1.73, 95%CI 1.21 to 2.49, P=0.003). Conclusion The application of aloe vera topical agents and dressings is positively significant to both acute and chronic wounds. But this conclusion still needs to be supported by high quality trials.