Exhaust energy recovery system (EERS) based on Rankine cycle (RC) in internal combustion engines have been studied mainly on heavy-duty diesel engines (D) and light-duty vehicle gasoline engines (G), however, little information available on systematical comparisons and evaluations between the two applications, which is a particularly necessary summary for clarifying the differences. In this paper, the two particular systems are compared quantitatively using water, R141b, R123 and R245fa as working fluids. The influences of evaporating pressure, engine type and load on the system performances are analyzed with multi-objectives, including the thermal efficiency improvement, the reduced CO2 emission, the total heat transfer area per net power output (APP), the electricity production cost (EPC) and the payback period (PBP). The results reveal that higher pressure and engine load would be attractive for better performances. R141b shows the best performances in system benefits for the D-EERS, while water exhibits the largest contributions in the G-EERS. Besides, water performs the best thermo-economics, and R245fa serves as the most uneconomical fluid. The D-EERS presents superior to the G-EERS in the economic applicability as well as much more CO2 emission reductions, although with slightly lower thermal efficiency improvement, and only the D-EERS with water under the full load meets the economic demand. Therefore the EERS based on RC serve more applicable on the heavy-duty diesel engine, while it might be feasible for the light-duty vehicle gasoline engine as the state-of-the art technologies are developed in the future. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.