Embodiments of this application relate to the field of communication, and disclose a packet processing method and apparatus, to alleviate a problem of high power consumption of a processor in a pipeline architecture in the conventional technology. A specific solution is as follows: A packet parsing module parses a first packet, and extracts first packet information from the first packet if it is determined that service complexity corresponding to the first packet is lower than a preset degree. A data amount of the first packet information is less than a data amount of second packet information, the second packet information is information extracted from a second packet, and service complexity of the second packet is higher than the preset degree. The packet parsing module sends the first packet information to a packet distribution module. The packet distribution module receives the first packet information, and sends the first packet information to a processor pipeline module. The processor pipeline module receives the first packet information, and processes the first packet information.