Green building assessment methods, which play an essential role in promoting the development of green buildings, have attracted much attention in recent years. Many studies have been conducted on the development of new assessment methods and improvement of existing ones through comparative analysis. However, there is no comprehensive study that explicitly explores these efforts. For this purpose, a systematic review of the existing literature on green building assessment methods through comparative analysis is carried out in this paper. The main contributing authors as well as represented countries and areas are investigated. The comparison rules, including the number of comparative assessment methods and high frequency assessment methods, as well as the current status of comparison topics are explored. Finally, some research opportunities are proposed for future development. The research results would serve as a useful reference for both industry practitioners and academics who are interested in the development of green building assessment methods. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.