BackgroundThe role of prophylactic drainage (PD) in gastrectomy for gastric cancer (GC) is not well-established. The purpose of this study is to compare the perioperative outcomes between the PD and non-drainage (ND) in GC patients undergoing gastrectomy.MethodsA systematic review of electronic databases including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure was performed up to December 2022. All eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies were included and meta-analyzed separately. The registration number of this protocol is PROSPERO CRD42022371102.ResultsOverall, 7 RCTs (783 patients) and 14 observational studies (4359 patients) were ultimately included. Data from RCTs indicated that patients in the ND group had a lower total complications rate (OR = 0.68; 95%CI:0.47–0.98;P= 0.04;I2= 0%), earlier time to soft diet (MD =  − 0.27; 95%CI: − 0.55 to 0.00;P= 0.05;I2= 0%) and shorter length of hospital stay (MD =  − 0.98; 95%CI: − 1.71 to − 0.26;P= 0.007;I2= 40%). While other outcomes including anastomotic leakage, duodenal stump leakage, pancreatic leakage, intra-abdominal abscess, surgical-site infection, pulmonary infection, need for additional drainage, reoperation rate, readmission rate, and mortality were not significantly different between the two groups. Meta-analyses on observational studies showed good agreement with the pooled results from RCTs, with higher statistical power.ConclusionThe present meta-analysis suggests that routine use of PD may not be necessary and even harmful in GC patients following gastrectomy. However, well-designed RCTs with risk-stratified randomization are still needed to validate the results of our study.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12957-023-03054-1.