The ongoing network softwarization trend holds the promise to revolutionize network infrastructures by making them more flexible, reconfigurable, portable, and more adaptive than ever. Still, the migration from hard-coded/hardwired network functions towards their software-programmable counterparts comes along with the need for tailored optimizations and acceleration techniques, so as to avoid, or at least mitigate, the throughput/latency performance degradation with respect to fixed function network elements. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, we provide a comprehensive overview of the host-based Network Function Virtualization (NFV) ecosystem, covering a broad range of techniques, from low level hardware acceleration and bump-in-the-wire offloading approaches, to highlevel software acceleration solutions, including the virtualization technique itself. Second, we derive guidelines regarding the design, development, and operation of NFV-based deployments that meet the flexibility and scalability requirements of modern communication networks.