Software Defined Networking (SDN), a new network architecture in which the control plane and data plane are split, has evolved as a result of technological advancements. A controller is recognized as the key element in the control plane which is responsible for performing all major operations for managing the data plane. Hence, the controller’s performance itself is very significant. In this paper, we have evaluated the performance of different SDN-based controllers in terms of response time and throughput. Our analysis indicates that when the number of operations is small, NOX performs better in both cases. As the number of operations increases, NOX has a better response time but ONOS has better throughput. Mininet and Wireshark have been used for simulation purposes. Finally, we concluded about the popular controller performance after studying the test data, which is important when picking the right SDN controller.