A computer-implemented system and method for processing messages using pluggable protocol processors in a service-oriented pipeline architecture is disclosed. The method in an example embodiment includes receiving a message having a protocol-specific portion and a protocol-agnostic portion; determining a protocol compatible with the received message; activating one of a plurality of pluggable protocol processors compatible with the received message; processing the protocol-specific portion of the received message using the activated pluggable protocol processor; and processing the protocol-agnostic portion of the received message using a message processing pipeline, the message processing pipeline including a plurality of stages for processing the protocol-agnostic portion of the received message.