The development of efficient catalysts has attracted widespread attention for the hydrogen evolution reaction of water splitting via MOF derivatives to remediate the current serious environmental and energy problems. Herein, the composite catalyst Ni-MOF/Ni2P/CdS was effectively created by calcination and hydrothermal methods using Ni-MOF and CdS as raw materials. The findings demonstrated that the composite catalyst NPS-15 with the highest photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate (18.359 mmol/g/h) was successfully developed, which is nine times greater than the hydrogen evolution rate of pure CdS and 80 times higher than that of Ni-MOF. In addition, its catalytic stability can still be maintained at about 80 % after 25 h of experience. This can be attributed to the presence of Ni2P, which improves the visible light absorption ability of the composite and promotes more photogenerated electron production. The characterization results have demonstrated that Ni2P as an electron trapping center can significantly improve the separation efficiency and transfer ability of photogenerated carriers. Meanwhile, Ni2P contains a negatively charged P, which can attract more protons to bind electrons for the reduction reaction. This study provides a probable strategy for the development of high-performance photocatalytic MOF derivatives for applications involving sustainable energy conversion.