The performance of active decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) system with an untrusted source is compared with that of passive decoy-state QKD. The key generation rate with the change of the secure transmission distance is shown under the condition of active decoy-state (or passive decoy-state) QKD where we pick the data size to be N=1012. The security characteristics of the passive scheme are studied with statistical fluctuation of the counting rate and the intensity of the practical source. At communication wavelength 1310 nm or 1550 nm, The security range of communication distance is 73.2 km, 96.5 km or 104.5 km, 137.9 km respectively. This analysis will provide important theoretical parameters for practical QKD experiment.