As a chronic progressive lung disease with poor prognosis, the pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has not yet been clarified, and its treatment is still being explored. The establishment of animal models plays an important role in the study of the pathogenesis and treatment of the disease. Based on the similarity between IPF and human IPF in terms of disease phenotype, this paper will review the research progress of IPF animal models in terms of the fibrosis mechanism induced by drugs and environmental factors, histopathological alterations, fibrosis stage, modelling time, etc., and describe the advantages, disadvantages and characteristics of different animal models.