Data released by the Chinese Sleep Medicine Congress in 2021 showed that more than 300 million people in China have sleep disorders, of which insomnia is the most common. Research into the mechanisms of insomnia and candidate therapeutic drugs needs to involve insomnia animal models and appropriate evaluation method. This article summarizes aspects of the insomnia animal models commonly used in the past 10 years and classifies them from the perspective of physical, chemical, pathological, and multiple factors. The method used to evaluate the insomnia models are also outlined. This paper provides a resource for studies of insomnia.