Disclosed are various embodiments that provide distributed user plane functions for radio-based networks. In one embodiment, data is received from a client device connected to a radio access network of a radio-based network. The data is forwarded to a user plane component of a user plane function. The user plane component is implemented in a computing device of the radio access network. The data is processed by the user plane component. The data that has been processed is then routed to a data network.