Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for creating network devices, where the method includes: creating multiple virtual hardware systems of control planes on a hardware system of a control plane of a physical network device; creating multiple virtual hardware systems of forwarding planes on a hardware system of a forwarding plane of the physical network device; loading multiple software systems of the control planes to the multiple virtual hardware systems of the control planes, respectively; loading multiple software systems of the forwarding planes to the multiple virtual hardware systems of the forwarding planes, respectively; creating multiple communication channels. In addition, a corresponding apparatus also provided. By using the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present invention, multiple virtual network devices can run software systems in different versions.