Description GStreamer is extensible, so GstElement instances can be loaded at runtime. A plugin system can provide one or more of the basic GStreamer GstPluginFeature subclasses. A plugin should export a symbol plugin_desc that is a struct of type GstPluginDesc. the plugin loader will check the version of the core library the plugin was linked against and will create a new GstPlugin. It will then call the GstPluginInitFunc function that was provided in the plugin_desc. Once you have a handle to a GstPlugin (e.g. from the GstRegistryPool), you can add any object that subclasses GstPluginFeature. Use gst_plugin_find_feature() and gst_plugin_get_feature_list() to find features in a plugin. Usually plugins are always automaticlly loaded so you don't need to call gst_plugin_load() explicitly to bring it into memory. There are options to statically link plugins to an app or even use GStreamer without a plugin repository in which case gst_plugin_load() can be needed to bring the plugin into memory.