The potential of modelling of liquid drop spreading on a rough surface by various approaches is analyzed. A number of examples (silicone oil on glass, mineral oil on stainless steel, etc.) are used to demonstrate good agreement between the results obtained by computational fluid dynamics and experimental data. The effects of various parameters (surface characteristics, properties of the liquid) on the process of spreading and the possibility to take account for these factors in the modelling are considered. Data on different spreading mechanisms on rough surfaces are presented. The bibliography includes 69 references.