The development of active, stable and low-cost non-noble-metal electrocatalysts for water splitting, particularly those that can catalyze both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at the cathode and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode, is a challenge. CoSe2@NF electrodes were prepared on nickel foam by hydrothermal and solid state process with cobalt nitrate hexahydrate, urea, ammonium fluoride and selenium powder. The structure and performance were characterized by XRD, XPS, SEM and TEM. The OER and HER properties were tested in alkaline solution. The results showed that the bead like structure with rough surface greatly improved the specific surface area and increased the number of effective active sites. CoSe2/NF shows high and stable catalytic activity in both the HER and OER in alkaline solution. At 1.6V cell voltage，the water cell equipped with CoSe2/NF electrodes give a current of 10 mA/cm2. It can operate stably for 100 h with the cell potential of 1.7 V. Consequently, these novel bifunctional electrodes are promising candidates for large-scale water electrolysis.