Introduction: Orthodontists constantly seek to reduce the duration of their provided treatments and the patient's time in the office. For this reason, different bracket systems are currently used in orthodontics; an example is self-ligating brackets (SLB) which are believed to offer advantages over conventional brackets (CB). Objective: To evaluate and compare the clinical periodontal effect of CB and SLB through a systematic review and a meta-analysis. Material and Method: A search of the literature was carried out until December 2017, in the biomedical databases: PubMed, Embase, SciELO, ScienceDirect, SIGLE, LILACS, BBO, Google Scholar and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. The selection criteria of the studies were defined as such: randomized clinical trials, up to 5 years old and that report the clinical effects (probing depth, bleeding on probing, gingival index and...