Screening tests of commercial and prepared monometallic Ni, Mo, Pd, Pt, Ru and bimetallic NiMo catalysts synthesized by four different impregnation methods were performed to evaluate their selectivity and performance on hydrocarbon production from vegetable oil feedstock with high free fatty acid (FFA) content (~50%) by solvent-free hydrotreatment (HT). Catalysts were characterized by N2 sorption analysis, XRF, XRD, FE-SEM and TEM. Composition of feedstock and liquid, gaseous products were analyzed by C, H, N, S elemental analysis, FT-IR, GC-FID, GC–MS and GC-TCD. Mo promoted Ni17Mo3DP synthesized using developed one-pot deposition–precipitation procedure exhibits great performance, selectivity to n-C18 and 6–7% higher hydrocarbon yield (~87%) than elevated metal loading (≥65%) commercial Ni65C and Ni66C catalysts achieved at relatively mild reaction temperature 320–340 °C and initial H2 pressure 6–10 MPa. Completely different selectivity of highly active Ru, Ni and NiMo catalysts can be beneficial for wide molecular weight marketable renewable hydrocarbon production from fatty acid containing raw materials.