Vehicular communication networks is a powerful tool that enables numerous vehicular data services and applications. The rapid growth in vehicles has also resulted in the vehicular network becoming heterogeneous, dynamic, and large-scale, making it hard to meet the strict requirements, such as extremely latency, high mobility, top security, and enormous connections of the fifth-generation network. Previous studies have shown that with the increase in the application of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) on Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) in industries, researchers have exerted considerable efforts to improve vehicular communications. This study presents an exhaustive review of previous works by classifying them based on based on wireless communication, particularly VANET. First, a concise summary of the VANET structure and SDN controller with layers and details of their infrastructure is provided. Second, a description of SDN-VANET applications in different wireless communications, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and VANET is provided with concentration on the examination and comparison of SDN-VANET works on several parameters. This paper also provides a detailed analysis of the open issues and research directions accomplished while integrating the VANET with SDN. It also highlights the current and emerging technologies with use cases in vehicular networks to address the several challenges in the VANET infrastructure. This survey acts as a catalyst in raising the emergent robustness routing protocol, latency, connectivity and security issues of future SDN-VANET architectures. INDEX TERMS Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), SDN, 5G, Internet of Vehicles (IoV), routing protocol, connectivity, mobility management, security.