An 8-week feeding experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of fishmeal replacement by soybean meal (SM) and hydrolyzed soybean meal (HSM) on growth performance, body composition, digestion and metabolism of juvenile hybrid grouper (♀Epinephelus fuscoguttatus×♂Epinephelus lanceolatus).Six isonitrogenous and isoenergetic diets were formulated by replacing 0, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% of fishmeal protein with soybean meal (SM0 to SM80) and 60% of fishmeal protein with hydrolyzed soybean meal (HSM60) respectively. A total of 540 juveniles (47.18±0.45 g) were randomly assigned into 6 groups with 3 replicates of 30 fish. Results showed as follows: (1) There was no significant influence on growth performance and feed utilization of juveniles in SM20 and SM40 group and the weight gain rate (W_GR), specific growth rate (S_GR), protein efficiency ratio (P_ER) and daily feed intake (D_FI) of the juveniles were significantly decreased in SM60 and SM80 group (P＜0.05). (2) With the increasing of dietary soybean meal content, the crude protein content in whole body decreased and the values of groups SM20-80 were significantly lower than that of the control group (P＜0.05), and the crude ash content in whole body was significantly lower in group SM40-80, and the moisture content in muscle significantly increased while crude protein and crude lipid content significantly decreased in group SM80 (P＜0.05). Dietary inclusion of SM (SM20 to SM80) significantly reduced several amino acid contents of muscle such as Met, Leu and Lys and so on (P＜0.05). (3) Dietary inclusion of SM (SM20 to SM80) significantly reduced intestinal trypsin activity (P＜0.05), and pepsin and intestinal amylase activities decreased significantly in SM60 and SM80 groups (P＜0.05). (4) The activities of alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) decreased with the increasing of dietary soybean meal content and were significantly lower in groups SM40-80 (P＜0.05),and the activity of Glucose-6-phosphatase (G6PC) was significantly higher in SM20 and SM40 groups. (5) Compared with SM60 group, the W_GR, S_GR and D_FI of juveniles in HSM60 group were significantly increased and F_CR was significantly decreased, and the crude lipid content of whole body and muscle decreased significantly while crude ash content increased significantly. The activities of pepsin, trypsin and amylase were significantly increased (P<0.05), and the activities of AST and ALT were significantly increased and the activity of FAS was significantly decreased (P <0.05). In conclusion, soybean meal can replace 40% of the fish meal and higher replacement level will lower the growth of juveniles and hydrolyzed soybean meal can replace 60% of the fish meal without reducing the growth of juveniles.