Embodiments of the present invention provide a data flow processing method and apparatus, and a system. A processing process performed on a packet is divided into multiple processing actions. Some processing actions are spread only when traffic of a current data flow meets a preset condition. Therefore, multiple processor cores may process a packet in a pipeline manner, so as to improve processing efficiency. When a bandwidth fluctuation amplitude of a data flow is relatively large and a peek bandwidth of the data flow is relatively large, compared with a static pipeline manner, the method provided in the embodiments of present invention avoids a waste of processing resources to some extent when traffic is relatively low, and can also better support data flow processing when traffic is relatively high.