Computing a protocol complexity indicator (PCI) for a communication protocol of interest in a networked computer system that processes network traffic of multiple protocols. The PCI provides an indication of predicted bandwidth usage by traffic of the protocol of interest. The PCI is used together with a throughput limit to establish a threshold amount for traffic of the protocol of interest. The PCI may then be used, for instance, to determine when to spawn a new instance of a network traffic-processing component for that protocol to maintain processing throughput at an acceptable level.