Atomistic modeling of femtosecond laser-induced reactions on metal surfaces is complex, as many degrees of freedom and electronic excitations should be considered. Due to computational complexity, usually, either dimensionality or the explicit inclusion of excited states have to be sacrificed. Examples of such two models are quantum nonadiabatic approaches realized by the Monte Carlo wave packet method in the framework of open-system density matrix theory and the classical adiabatic approach that is realized with the help of frictional Langevin dynamics with stochastic forces. In the quantum model only a few nuclear degrees of freedom can be considered and both ground and excited states, while the classical model allows, in principle, all nuclear degrees of freedom, but only in the ground state. Being a paradigmatic model, laser-induced recombinative desorption of hydrogen from Ru(0001) was modeled in both fashions. In passing we note that in order to treat multidimensional multi-surface dynamics for gas-surface problems, the independent-electron surface hopping (IESH) method has been introduced, but so far not applied to surface photochemistry.