A communication method and apparatus are provided, to implement combined deployment and selection of a plurality of network functions in a 5G architecture. This helps reduce deployment costs and complexity. In this application, a requesting network function sends a first network function type to a network repository function. The network repository function receives the first network function type from the requesting network function. The network repository function sends a profile of a first network function corresponding to the first network function type to the requesting network function. The requesting network function receives the profile of the first network function corresponding to the first network function type from the network repository function. The profile of the first network function includes a first indication, the first indication indicates combined deployment of the first network function and a second network function, and the first network function and the second network function have different network function types.