Commercial carbon steels containing 0.2~0.55 wt.----C were plasma-nitrided or plasma nitrocarburized at $550^{circ}C$ for 21.6Ks using $H_2-N_2$ or $H_2-N_2$-CO mixed gas respectively. The characteristics of hardening and wear-resistance of each treatment were studied and compared. And also microstructure of nitrided layer and nitrides formed in compound layer near surface were studied. All plasma-nitrided steels investigated showed remarkable increase of surface hardness with the increase of carbon content. But nitrocarburized steels resulted in higher surface-hardness than plasma-nitrided steels, which means that nitrocarburized has higher surface-hardening effect. Plasma-nitrided steels showed hardness increase in through-thickness direction near surface. And also nitrocarburized steels showed similar hardness distribution in through-thickness direction to that of plasma-nitrided steel. However, nitrocarburized steels had higher cross-sectional maximum-hardness than plasma-nitrided steels as much as 100Hv. Wear test showed that the amount of specific wear was reduced by both plasma-nitriding and nitrocarburized, showing that the amount of specific wear was not related to the hardness. But non-treated specimen showed that the amount of specific wear was related to the hardness.