ObjectiveTo provide references for scientific selection of different tools/guidelines by comprehensively collecting international and national tools/guidelines for assessing reporting quality and methodological quality of animal experiments, comparing them in development foundation, application scope, and aims. MethodsPubMed, EMbase, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data were searched up to July 2014, to collect tools/guidelines for reporting quality and methodological quality of primary animal experiments. We extracted data from included guidelines/tools, including the number of items, development foundation, disease models, application scope, and assessment focus. Then descriptive analysis was conducted. ResultsA total of 32 studies were finally included, of which, 6 were for reporting quality and 26 for methodological quality. The item number of the included tools/guidelines ranged from 2 to 54. Seven tools/guidelines applied score system to assess methodological quality. Fifteen tools/guidelines were designed for specific disease models. Nineteen tools/guidelines were suitable for assessing preclinical drug studies, and 4 were designed to assess environmental toxicology research. ConclusionAlthough many tools for assessing methodological quality of animal experiments have been published so far, SYRCLE's risk of bias tool is the only one that is used to assess internal validity of animal experiments at present. Besides, although the ARRIVE guidelines and GSPC are not official mandatory reporting criteria at present, they are acknowledged by many researchers as efficient reference checklists and writing guidelines for writing and publishing animal experiments. We recommend the application of SYRCLE's risk of bias tool, ARRIVE guidelines and GSPC, in order to efficiently improve research design, implementation, reporting, differentiation, and evaluation of animal experiments, promote the development of animal experiments, and to promote full application and translation of scientific achievements.