A comparable study of the quantum van der Waals and Walecka models of nuclear matter is presented. Each model contains two parameters which characterize the repulsive and attractive interactions between nucleons. These parameters are fixed in order to reproduce the known properties of the nuclear ground state. Both models predict a first-order liquid-gas phase transition and a very similar behavior in the vicinity of the critical point. Critical exponents of the quantum van der Waals model are studied both analytically and numerically. There are important differences in the behavior of the thermodynamical functions of the considered models at large values of the nucleon number density. At the same time both models fall into the universality class of mean-field theory.