DPDK is a set of libraries and modules for developing the data plane. It exploits many popular tools and projects such as pcap to capture the packets. Many of its user tools and configuration scripts are written in Python, and a few libraries written in Python to extend DPDK. The DPDK example applications found in build/examples leverage the core of DPDK to program the data plane.

The bundled example applications are (as named by DPDK) bond, ethtool, ip_pipeline, kni, l2fwd-jobstats, l3fwd-acl, link_status_interrupt, netmap_compat, qos_meter, rxtx_callbacks, tep_termination, vmdq, cmdline, exception_path, ipsec-secgw, l2fwd, l2fwd-keepalive, l3fwd-power, load_balancer, packet_ordering, qos_sched, server_node_efd, timer, vmdq_dcb, distributor, helloworld, ipv4_multicast, l2fwd-crypto, l3fwd, l3fwd-vf, multi_process, performance-thread, quota_watermark, skeleton, vhost, and vm_power_manager.