With the development of the ocean economy in recent decades, such as oil and gas exploitation in deep ocean environment, marine equipment urgently needs advanced protective technologies against the special service environment like high speed, strong friction, lubrication, etc. How to further improve the properties of marine equipment such as corrosion resistance and abrasion resistance becomes the key problem. Thermal spraying has been proven to be an efficient surface protection technology, in particular in fabricating anti-corrosion coatings on marine equipment surfaces. Among the marine protective coatings developed in past decades, thermal sprayed aluminum coating is evidenced to be one of the most economical and efficient corrosion protection coating. However, compared with its excellent corrosion resistance in marine environment, the tribological properties of aluminum are poor, such as high friction coefficient and low lubrication, which limits its application. In order to improve the tribological properties of the aluminum coating, adding low friction materials like carbon based materials is a feasible way. The work aims to prepare carbon fiber reinforced aluminum-based anti-attrition composite coating. The carbon fiber reinforced aluminum-based (Al/CFs) composite powder core wire was fabricated, and the Al/CFs composite coating was prepared by arc spraying. The properties of the composite coating were characterized. The micromorphology and the physicochemical properties of the coating were examined by SEM and XRD. The tribological properties and corrosion resistance of the coating were tested by friction and wear testing machine, electrochemical workstation and neutral salt spray test chamber. The effect of carbon fibers on the properties of the Al-based coating was comprehensively evaluated. The results showed that the tribological properties of the Al-based composite coating with carbon fibers were significantly improved compared with the pure Al coating, with the friction coefficient decreasing from ~0.4 to ~0.2 and the wear rate decreasing from ~2.0×10–3 mm3/(N.m) to ~8×10–4 mm3/(N.m). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to examine the surface wear morphologies of the composite coating and its wear pairs, and the wear mechanism of the coating was also analyzed. It was found that the wear mechanism of the Al/CFs composite coating was mainly abrasive wear, while that of the pure Al coating was adhesive wear. The corrosion trend of the coating was tested by the electrodynamic polarization curve and the Bode curve. The electrochemical results showed that the addition of carbon fibers did not significantly affect the corrosion resistance of the Al-based coating. Further, neutral salt spray test also showed that all the Al-based coatings had excellent corrosion resistance with no obvious corrosion products found on the coating surface after 720 h NSS test. In summary, the Al/CFs composite powder core wire and its coating can be prepared by powder core wire technology and arc spraying. Addition of carbon fibers into the aluminum coating system can significantly reduce the friction coefficient and wear rate of the composite coating without affecting the corrosion resistance of the original aluminum coating. The composite coating reveals excellent anti-corrosion and anti-attrition performances and can expand the application of Al-based coating in the field of corrosion resistance and wear reduction.