Soil infiltration characteristic is an important link that affects forest ecological hydrological processes. To compare differences in soil-water infiltration characteristics of different community types, the double cutting ring method was used to analyse natural forests, Artificial forest, gap grasslands, grasslands, forest edge shrubs, and piedmont shrubs on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains. The effects of soil physical and chemical properties, such as organic matter content, capillary porosity, bulk density, and water content, on the infiltration process were compared and analysed. Thress common models were used to simulate the infiltration process, and the suitability of these models in the area was analysed and compared. The results were as follows:(1) The initial infiltration rate of the soil in the first 60 min in the six main community types was 2.63-9.00 mm/min, and the stable infiltration rate was 0.85-5.12 mm/min. The average soil infiltration rate of the different community types ranged from high to low as follows:natural forest > forest edge shrub > gap grassland > grassland > artificial forest > piedmont shrub. (2) The soil infiltration performance of the six community types showed the same trend:initial infiltration rate > average infiltration rate > stable infiltration rate. (3) The Kostiakov model had a high fitting precision for the soil infiltration process of the six community types and was suitable for describing the soil infiltration characteristics of the water conservation forests in this study area. (4) The soil organic matter content was positively correlated with the soil infiltration rate and reached a significant level with initial infiltration rate; the soil-water content, soil capillary porosity, and soil bulk density were significantly negatively correlated with soil infiltration capacity. Observation and simulation of the soil-water movement process of different community types can provide a useful reference for the long-term observation of ecological hydrology in the forest areas of Tianshan.