Research on ecosystem services has become one of the hotspots and key issues of ecology, geography and environmental science. Based on SCI-E and CNKI databases, this paper comparative reviewed the research status and hotspots of ecosystem services in China and USA via bibliometric method and text meta-analysis. The results show that: (1) the papers on ecosystem services in China and USA in the latest 30 years was 9327 and 9468, respectively, both increased with a significant growth trend. (2) As to the average quoting frequency per paper and total quoting in both China and USA, Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford University ranked first in China and USA, respectively. The most published journal in the USA on ecosystem services was Ecological Economics, but the highest quoting journal was PNAS. Acta Ecologica Sinica was the Chinese journal with the most articles on ecosystem service and the highest quoting rate. The most influential scholars in USA are Kremen C and Polasky S, while in China are Ouyang Zhiyun and Fu Bojie. (3) There are different research hotspots of ecosystem service in China and USA in the different periods. As the two major research countries on ecosystem services themes, USA was relatively ahead of China in terms of theoretical research and methods. (4) American researchers focus more on theoretical research and models building, while the Chinese researchers focus more on the basic research and its application. Recently, the researchers in the two countries have paid more and more attention to global issues such as human well-being and ecological security. Ecosystem services, human well-being and scientific decision-making have become new hotspots. In the context of global sustainable development, the two countries have good prospects for communication and cooperation in ecosystem services research.