In some regions of the world subjected to frequent severe earthquakes, such as Algeria, attention is focused on seismic design in order to assure the public welfare. When, for many countries most of the building consists of constructions of “self-steady frames” type system. The last seismic events have shown the inef-ficiency of such a type of to avoid evident disaster. On the other hand, the use of shear walls as “Lateral Load Resisting System” (LLRS) seems to be a good alternative. This study tries to confirm the requirement of shear walls in seismic zones by highlighting their beneficial effect on structures subjected to strong mo-tions. For this purpose, a comparison is made between the two types using both linear and nonlinear analy-sis with a focus on two parameters which are of great importance, the base shear and the lateral drift in particular. Applications are made on two types of Reinforced Concrete (RC) multistory structures: with shear walls (dual systems) and without (w/o) shear walls (self-steady structures). The results permit to emphasize the need of shear walls as LLRS in seismic zones and confirm the restrictions imposed by the Algerian code, amongst others, concerning the use of self-steady frames system for structures in such area.