Objective To determine the effects of home-based cardiac rehabilitation (HBCR) and center-based cardiac rehabilitation (CBCR) on cardiopulmonary fitness in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods The CHD patients (18-80 years old) who visited the Clinic of Cardiac Rehabilitation Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital from November 2018 to October 2019 were subjected in this study, and were randomly divided into HBCR and CBCR groups. They were given the HBCR program or CBCR program respectively for 3 months. Then peak oxygen uptake (peak VO₂) were compared before and after the intervention and between the 2 groups. Statistical analyses were conducted by SPSS statistics 25.0. Intergroup differences were analyzed by Chi-square test, student′s t test, or Mann-Whitney U test for different data types. Results For the 191 enrolled patients, 92 were assigned into HBCR group and 99 into CBCR group. There were no statistical differences in the baseline data between the 2 groups. After intervention, peak VO₂ level was significantly increased in the HBCR group [(20.5±4.7) vs(19.2±3.9) ml/(kg·min); P=0.002] and the CBCR group [(21.2±4.8) vs (19.9±4.4) ml/(kg·min); P=0.001]. But no statistical difference was seen in the level between HBCR and CBCR groups after the intervention (P=0.331), in the improvement of the level after the intervention [1.2 (-1.2,3.5) vs 1.1 (-0.5,3.5) ml/(kg·min); P=0.630], or in the ratio of the improvement after the intervention to the level before [0.1 (- 0.1,0.2) vs 0.1 (0.0,0.2); P=0.610]. Conclusion Both HBCR and CBCR can improve the cardiopulmonary fitness in the CHD patients. And the improvement of the cardiopulmonary fitness by HBCR is equal to that of CBCR.