The paper presents the results of a study of the bifurcation of axisymmetric equilibrium forms of round plates under various conditions for fixing the outer edge. It is shown that for the case of sliding edge, the analytical, asymptotic and finite element approaches give close results. When the edge of the plate is hinged, the buckling to a non-axisymmetric state occurs at a much higher load and with the formation of a smaller number of waves than for a sliding boundary conditions. Difficulties in obtaining a numerical solution based on the analytical approach are apparently associated with the need for a more accurate description of the stress-strain subcritical state of the plate.