Viral pneumonia is a highly infectious respiratory disease. The disease course develops rapidly and the incidence rate is increasing. Therefore, it is important to establish an animal model that corresponds to the clinical characteristics of traditional Chinese and Western medicines. This review summarizes the method, mechanisms and principles of the existing models by summarizing a large number of studies. In accordance with the proposed clinical diagnostic criteria of traditional Chinese and Western medicines, this study evaluated the anastomosis degree of traditional Chinese and Western medicines of various models. The result showed that the model of viral pneumonia with damp heat syndrome caused by a high fat diet, virus nasal drip, and swimming for 30 min had a high degree of clinical coincidence between traditional Chinese and Western medicines. The symptoms of fever, sore throat, cough, nasal congestion, runny nose, and dyspnea of the model animals are more consistent with the clinical characteristics of human viral pneumonia, and the pathological changes of lung tissue were obvious. There was a large number of inflammatory cells under the bronchial mucosa and around the tracheal wall, which was highly consistent with the damp heat syndrome type of viral pneumonia. By analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each modeling method of viral pneumonia, this study provides suggestions on improving the animal model and ideas for in-depth study of the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment method to promote clinical research of viral pneumonia.