This systematic review (SR) and meta-analysis aims to compare the surgery-related results and oncological outcomes between SH and RH in patients with early-stage cervical cancer. We systematically searched databases including PubMed, Embase and Cochrane to collect studies that compared oncological and surgery-related outcomes between SH and RH groups in patients with stage IA2 and IB1 cervical cancer. A random-effect model calculated the weighted average difference of each primary outcome via Review Manager V.5.4. Seven studies comprising 6977 patients were included into our study. For oncological outcomes, we found no statistical difference in recurrence rate OR = 0.88; 95% CI (0.50, 1.57); P = 0.68 and Overall Survival (OS) OR = 1.23; 95% CI (0.69, 2.19), P = 0.48. No difference was detected in the prevalence of positive LVSI and lymph nodes metastasis between the two groups. Concerning surgery-related outcomes, the comprehensive effects revealed that the bladder injury OR = 0.28; 95% CI (0.08, 0.94), P = 0.04 and bladder disfunction OR = 0.10; 95% CI (0.02, 0.53), P = 0.007 of the RH group were higher compared to the SH group. This meta-analysis suggested there are no significant differences in terms of both recurrence rate and overall survival among patients with stage IA2-IB1 cervical cancer undergoing SH or RH, while the SH group has better surgery-related outcomes. These data confirm the need to narrow the indication for RH in early-stage cervical cancer.