Aim To study the effective components, targets and pathways of Uncaria for the treatment of atherosclerosis based on network pharmacology and molecular docking. Methods Using TCMSP database and screening conditions, the main effective components and corresponding targets of Uncaria were determined, and the effective component-target network was constructed. GeneCards, DisGeNET, OMIM and TTD databases were used to identify disease targets of atherosclerosis, and the intersection of drug targets and disease targets were obtained. PPI network analysis, GO biological function enrichment analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were performed on the intersection targets.Using “Analyze Network ”tool in Cytoscape 3.9.0, an active component-target-pathway network was constructed and the core components, core targets and core pathways were screen out. The affinity between core components and core targets were verified by molecular docking. Results Thirty-three active components were screened out, one of which had no corresponding target. A total of 1 608 disease targets and 115 drug-disease intersection targets were screened. The main targets of PPI analysis were AKT1, TNF, IL-6, IL-1β, TP53, JUN, CASP3, MMP9 and PTGS2, etc. GO biological function enrichment analysis obtained 22 items of biological processes, 57 items of cell components and 100 items of molecular function. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis screened 20 signaling pathways, mainly including lipid and atherosclerosis, MAPK, cancer signaling pathways, etc. In the effective component-target-pathway network constructed by “Analyze Network” tool, the core components of Uncaria in the treatment of atherosclerosis were selected as quercetin and kaempferol. The core targets were PTGS2, HSP90AA1 and PTGS1. The core pathways were lipid and atherosclerosis, MAPK signaling pathway. Molecular docking showed that quercetin and kaempferol had good affinity with PTGS2, HSP90AA1 and PTGS1 targets, especially PTGS2 had strong binding activity with quercetin and kaempferol. Conclusion Quercetin and kaherol, the core components of Uncaria, may act on PTGS2, HSP90AA1 and PTGS1 targets through lipid and atherosclerotic and MAPK signaling pathways, and play an anti-atherosclerotic role in the biological functions of protein binding, enzyme binding and recognized protein binding.