Over the past century, humans have cleared the Earth's forests at an alarming rate and intensity. The majority of global forest cover is categorized as secondary forest, and it is becoming increasingly important to consider secondary forests in addition to old-growth forest in conservation planning for biota. We reviewed the literature to synthesize information on amphibian and reptile communities during secondary forest succession. We summarized literature on mechanisms of community change during forest succession and conducted a meta-analysis to estimate effect sizes for species richness and abundance in human-modified landscapes (agriculture, pasture, and plantation) and old-growth forests compared to regenerating secondary forests. Studies reported strong support for differences in species composition among human-modified landscapes, secondary forest, and old-growth forest as well as species-specific responses to successional forest change. Secondary forest generally had higher species richness and abundance than human-modified landscapes, but lower species richness and abundance than old-growth forests. This result was more pronounced in amphibians than reptiles, and effect size of abundance was more variable than richness among studies. Secondary forests have better conservation value than altered habitats, but they do not necessarily hold the same conservation value for species as old-growth forest.