The techniques describe example network systems for adaptively determining whether to perform ingress replication or assisted replication of a multicast flow based on classification of the multicast flow. For example, a provider edge (PE) device of a plurality of PE devices participating in an EVPN comprises one or more processors operably coupled to a memory, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: receive a multicast traffic flow, determine a classification of the multicast traffic flow, and perform, based at least in part on the classification of the multicast traffic flow, one of: ingress replication of the multicast traffic flow or assisted replication of the multicast traffic flow.