Production of leachate and contamination of water bodies is a major concern in solid waste landfills. The generated leachate must be appropriately treated before being discharged into the environment. It can be treated by different physico-chemical and biological methods and their combinations. In this study, the performance of the membrane bioreactor (MBR) and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) technologies are compared in treating landfill leachate. Lab scale models of MBR with working volume of 7.5 L and SBR with volume of 16.5 L were set up and fed with landfill leachate collected from Karadiyana dumpsite, Sri Lanka. The leachate fed to the reactors contained chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) in the ranges of 2100 mg/L-2800 mg/L and 260 mg/L -320 mg/L, respectively. Two treatment systems were assessed for 60 days and analyzed for the performance of removing BOD5, COD, Total Carbon (TC), Total Nitrogen (TN), Sulphates and Phosphates. The MBR exhibited a superior performance with removal efficiencies exceeding 95% for BOD5, 77% for TC, and 80% for COD. In the case of SBR, the removal efficiencies of BOD5, COD and TC were 76%, 65%, and 51%, respectively. TN removals were below 60% in both the MBR and SBR. The Sulphate and Phosphate removal were 37% and 76% for MBR and 25% and 48% for SBR. The SBR technology offers flexibility in cycle time and sequence, however, its performance is constrained when considering landfill leachate associated with significant variations in quality and quantity. The MBR technology improved removal efficiencies significantly.