Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and apparatus for distributed data processing. The method comprises: receiving from an upstream node an input message attached with a shared count, the shared count being used for determining a processing status of a root message associated with the input message; processing the input message to generate one or more new messages; allocating to each of the one or more new messages a respective new shared count based on the received shared count; and transmitting the one or more new messages to one or more downstream nodes respectively. Compared with the prior art, the methods and apparatuses for distributed data processing according to the embodiments of the present disclosure can effectively reduce network traffic overheads and the consumed CPU and memory resources, and would be scalable for different topologies of various distributed data processing systems.