Biomass-derived carbon materials have obtained great attention due to their sustainability, easy availability, low cost and environmentally benign. In this work, bamboo leaves derived nitrogen doped hierarchically porous carbon have been efficiently synthesized via an annealing approach, followed by an etching process in HF solution. Electrochemical measurements demonstrate that the unique porous structure, together with the inherent high nitrogen content, endow the as-derived carbon with excellent lithium/sodium storage performance. The porous carbon annealed at 700 °C presents outstanding rate capability and remarkable long-term stability as anodes for both lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries. The optimized carbon delivers a high discharge capacity of 450 mAh/g after 500 cycles at the current density of 0.2 A/g for LIBs, and a discharge capacity of 180 mAh/g after 300 cycles at the current density of 0.1 A/g for SIBs.