A method is implemented by a computing device to determine a root cause of a performance issue in a software defined networking (SDN) network using flow statistics maintained by hosts in the network. The method includes receiving a request to perform a root cause analysis (RCA) for a first flow in the network that is experiencing a performance issue, obtaining flow path information for flows in the network, and obtaining flow statistics for the flows in the network, where the flow statistics are end-to-end flow statistics maintained by one or more hosts in the network. The method further includes executing an RCA algorithm for the first flow, where the RCA algorithm determines a root cause of a performance issue experienced by the first flow based on the flow path information and the flow statistics.