Developing low-cost, high-activity non-precious metal electrocatalysts is of great significance for the practical application of water electrolysis. Rare earth (RE) elements have become a research hotspot for the modification of metal catalysts due to their unique electronic structures. However, the methods for preparing rare earth composite catalysts on nickel foam (NF) substrates are demanding, presenting issues such as high cost, complex processes, and long production time. This research employed a straightforward chemical deposition technique to fabricate rare earth composite electrodes on NF substrates. The structure and morphology of the catalytic electrodes were characterized, and their hydrogen evolution performances in 1 mol·L^-1 KOH solution were investigated. The results revealed that adding Sm, Dy, and Tb could alter the electronic structure of the electrodes, improve the intrinsic properties of the catalyst materials, and enhance the catalytic performance for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Ni-Co-B-Tb/NF displayed superior hydrogen evolution performance with an overpotential of only 58 mV at a current density of 10 mA·cm^-2 and a Tafel slope of 65 mV·dec^-1. HER was controlled by the Volmer-Heyrovsky step. It was found that the variation of rare earth concentration had great effect on the electrocatalytic performance. When the Tb concentration was 3 g·L^-1, smaller size and uniformer distribution of particles on the surface of Ni-Co-B-Tb/NF exposed more active sites, which was favorable for HER charge transfer, and the best performance of hydrogen evolution was achieved. Furthermore this catalyst exhibited remarkable electrochemical stability following an extensive 100 h stability test and 2000 cyclic voltammetry (CV) testing.