The invention relates to the field of evaluation of characteristics of coal direct liquefaction reactions, and discloses a method and an apparatus for evaluating the characteristics of a coal direct liquefaction reaction. The method comprises: (1) inputting a hydrogenation circulation solvent and hydrogen into a stirring kettle reactor, and determining and calculating the coal direct liquefactionreaction gas content under a coal direct liquefaction reaction condition, wherein the material enters from the bottom portion and the material is discharged from the top portion in the inputting process; and (2) mixing coal powder, the hydrogenation circulation solvent and a catalyst to prepare a coal slurry, introducing the raw materials comprising the coal slurry and hydrogen into the stirring kettle reactor, carrying out a coal direct coal liquefaction reaction, and determining the coal direct coal liquefaction reaction time according to the coal slurry feeding amount, the coal direct liquefaction reaction gas content and the effective volume of the stirring kettle reactor. With the method and the apparatus of the present invention, the gas content, the reaction time and the reaction characteristic of the coal direct liquefaction reaction can be determined so as to provide the more basic data for the coal direct liquefaction reaction kinetics research and the industrial design.