AIM: To compare the clinical outcomes of a variety of multifocal intraocular lenses (MIOLs) in patients diagnosed with presbyopia or cataracts. METHODS: This clinical trial study included 141 patients (282 eyes) with different MIOLs implantation. The Symfony (60 eyes), the ReSTOR (100 eyes), the AT LISAtri (60 eyes), and the PanOptix (62 eyes) intraocular lenses were evaluated in this prospective interventional study. The near, intermediate, and distant visual acuities, contrast sensitivity, and defocus curve were measured as valid criteria. To statistically analyze the results, we used the Statistical Package for Social Science software, the non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank t, the one-way analysis of variance and the Tukey's post-hoc test in our analysis. Moreover, we conducted a detailed literature search on the PubMed database in English about MIOLs, in total 59 studies were included in this review article. RESULTS: The four approaches did not show any significant difference in the best-corrected distance visual acuity (P>0.05). The defocus curves at the contrast of 100% showed that trifocal IOLs had better intermediate performance than the bifocal IOL (P<0.05). There were no statistically significant differences between AT LISAtri and PanOptix lenses for visual acuity at all distances. The eyes with PanOptix, Symfony, and AT LISAtri IOL showed better contrast sensitivity than those ReSTOR at spatial frequencies of 1, 3, and 6 cpd in photopic and mesopic conditions (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: All four groups of the multifocal lenses were satisfying in terms of distance and near vision. Also, the group of trifocal lenses led to satisfactory outcomes in intermediate vision, without degradation in quality of vision.