In general, techniques are described for deploying and managing a virtual router having Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) functionality to a computing device. In an example, a method includes creating, by a container orchestration platform executing on a computing device, a virtual router custom resource instance of a virtual router custom resource definition, the virtual router custom resource instance for a virtual router to execute on the computing device; based on configuration data for the virtual router custom resource instance, by the container orchestration platform, modifying the virtual router custom resource instance with the configuration data and deploying a first virtual computing instance comprising a virtual router configured according to the modified virtual router custom resource instance; and executing, by the computing device, the virtual router to process a packet.