This systematic review and meta-analysis compared the incidence of injection pain between ciprofal and propofol after induction of general anesthesia based on 10 randomized controlled trials with 1402 patients. Ciprofol significantly reduced the incidence of injection pain compared with propofol with a hazard ratio (RR) of 0.15 (95% CI: 0.11 to 0.20). This effect was valid both in older patients (RR = 0.14, 95% CI: 0.06 to 0.35) and in younger patients (RR = 0.15, 95% CI: 0.11 to 0.21). In addition, ciprofol significantly reduced the incidence of hypotension (RR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.46 to 0.87). A trend towards lower tachycardia (RR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.39 to 1.01) was observed, but this was not statistically significant. The GRADE assessment showed moderate certainty of evidence for pain on injection, and sequential analysis of the trial confirmed sufficient evidence for both pain and hypotension. The report registration is CRD420251003081.