Partial discharge (PD)taking place in a solid dielectric-bounded cavity involves physical processes such as free electron supply, discharge development and surface charge decaying, which bring about memory effects and become the main reasons for stochastic behavior of PDs. This paper reviews numerical modeling of cavity PD in the past 30 years. In the first place, physical processes relevant to PD activity are summarized, and modeling methods for discharge development are classified. Then some differences of PD modeling at AC and DC voltages are distinguished. Subsequently, reproducing methods from simulations to experiments are introduced, as well as their comparison under different conditions and with the emphasis on voltage frequency and PD aging. At last, some problems about current simulation models are discussed, and our suggestions for future work are proposed.