These two are compared constantly and they are not alternatives. A systematic review is the whole process: a protocol, a reproducible search, screening, appraisal and synthesis. A meta-analysis is one possible way of doing the synthesis step, by combining results statistically. You can have a systematic review without a meta-analysis, and a meta-analysis without a systematic review is usually a bad idea. This page is about why that matters when you are choosing what to run.
The containing relationship
Think of the review as the method and the meta-analysis as one of its possible endings. Everything before the synthesis step is identical whether or not you pool: the same protocol, the same search, the same screening, the same extraction. That is why the choice can often be left until the extraction is done and you can see whether the studies are comparable, provided the protocol says that is what you will decide and how.
A meta-analysis without a systematic review
Pooling a set of studies you gathered informally means the selection is unexplained, so the precision of the result is fake: a narrow confidence interval around a biased sample is more misleading than a wide one around an honest sample. This is the commonest way the term is misused, and it is why the search and screening record matters as much as the statistics.
Which to say in your title
If you did the whole process and pooled, the conventional title is a systematic review and meta-analysis. If you did the process and did not pool, it is a systematic review, and there is nothing to apologize for. If you pooled without a reproducible search, the honest description is a pooled analysis, and using the other label invites exactly the objection you would least like at review.
Questions people ask about systematic review vs meta analysis
Is a meta-analysis better than a systematic review?
They are not comparable in that way: a meta-analysis is a step that can sit inside a systematic review. A systematic review with a well-argued narrative synthesis can be far more useful than one that pooled studies it should not have.
Can I do a meta-analysis on my own?
The statistics, yes, with software. The screening underneath it is the part that really wants two people, and the credibility of the pooled number rests on that selection rather than on the model you chose.
When should I decide whether to pool?
Say in the protocol what would make pooling appropriate, then decide after extraction when you can see whether the studies are comparable. Deciding after seeing the pooled result is how a method section becomes unpublishable.
What should the title say?
Systematic review and meta-analysis if you did both; systematic review if you did the process and did not pool; pooled analysis if the selection was not reproducible. The label should describe the method rather than the ambition.