A network interface controller (NIC) capable of hybrid message matching is provided. The NIC can be equipped with a host interface, a hardware endpoint, and an endpoint management logic block. The host interface can couple the NIC to a host device. The hardware endpoint can facilitate a point of communication for an application running on the host device. The endpoint management logic block can maintain a list for storing a message associated with an endpoint represented by the hardware endpoint. The endpoint management logic block can then determine whether the utilization of the list is higher than a threshold. If the utilization is higher than the threshold, the endpoint management logic block can set a state of the endpoint to indicate that the endpoint is software managed. The NIC thus can transfer the control of the endpoint from the hardware endpoint to a software process of the host device.