Security+ vs CISSP: which one fits where you are now
By SunTzu, founder of CertOwl • Published • 4 min read
Quick answer
Security+ and CISSP are not rivals, they sit at opposite ends of the same career. Security+ has no entry requirements and costs $439, which makes it the one you take first. CISSP requires five years of paid security work across two of its eight domains, costs $749, and targets people who already run security programmes. So the practical question is not which certificate is better, it is which one you are currently eligible for.
Which should you take, Security+ or CISSP? Search volume suggests plenty of people treat that as a straight choice, two doors along the same corridor. It is not. One of those doors has a lock on it, and the key is five years of paid security work that you either have or you do not.
This guide compares them on the four things that decide it: who is allowed in, what each exam demands, what they cost, and what they open.
The gate nobody talks their way past
CISSP asks for five years of cumulative, paid, full time experience in at least two of its eight domains. That is the requirement before you can be certified, and ISC2 verifies it through an endorsement from an existing member. Security+ asks for nothing. CompTIA recommends Network+ and roughly two years of IT experience with a security focus, but that is advice, not a gate at registration.
There is a side entrance worth knowing about. Pass the exam without the experience and you become an Associate of ISC2, with six years to accumulate the five you need. Useful if you are close, less so from a standing start, because the clock runs while you hunt for the job that counts.
Two exams built for different heads
| Security+ SY0-701 | CISSP | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | up to 90 questions, some performance based | adaptive (CAT), 100 to 150 items |
| Time | 90 minutes | up to 3 hours |
| Pass mark | 750 of 900 | 700 of 1000 |
| Exam fee | $439 | $749 |
| Mindset tested | can you apply the control | should the control exist at all |
That last row matters more than the rest. Security+ rewards recognition and application: you see a scenario, you pick the control that fits. CISSP rewards judgement above the tooling, which is why so much advice about it reduces to answering as a manager rather than an engineer. Neither is harder in the abstract. They are hard in different directions, which trips up strong technical people who assume one predicts the other. We break the Security+ side of that down in how hard Security+ really is.
The cost you notice later
Sticker prices are close enough that they rarely decide anything: $439 against $749. The running cost is where they separate. CISSP carries an annual maintenance fee of $135 and needs 120 CPE credits across each three year cycle, at least 90 of them in the domains themselves. Security+ renews on a three year cycle too, through CompTIA continuing education, and our cost breakdown covers what that adds up to.
Over three years CISSP is not a single payment. It is a subscription to a professional body, plus CPE work you schedule around.
Your Security+ still buys you a year
One update most comparison articles have not caught up with: on 1 April 2026 ISC2 cut its CISSP experience waiver list roughly in half, from about fifty credentials to twenty five. CEH, CISA, CRISC and OSCP came off it. CompTIA Security+ stayed on, alongside CySA+ and CASP+ or SecurityX.
The practical effect: an approved credential, or a relevant four year degree, waives one year of the five. Hold Security+ and you need four years of experience rather than five. That makes Security+ not just the earlier certificate but a component of the later one. If you are weighing what it returns on its own, is Security+ worth it goes through the return in detail.
So which one
If you have under five years in security roles, the choice is made for you. Take Security+, get into a role where the experience accrues, and let the clock do its work. The jobs that door opens are covered in entry level roles after Security+.
If you are past five years and moving toward lead, architect or manager titles, CISSP is the one that appears in those job descriptions, and Security+ has already paid for a year of your eligibility. Taking them in the other order is not ambitious, it is just slower.
Test yourself: 3 quick questions
During quantitative analysis, one estimates what PERCENTAGE of an asset's value would be lost if a certain threat materializes once. What is this percentage called?
The exposure factor (EF) is the percentage of an asset's value that is lost in a single incident (e.g. 0.5 means the loss of half the value). ARO is the number of expected occurrences per year, AV is the monetary value of the asset, and ALE is the annualized loss expectancy.
An attacker compromises the website of a professional association regularly visited by employees of a targeted company and places an exploit kit on it. What is this attack called?
A watering hole attack compromises a legitimate site that the target group visits anyway, so the victims come to the exploit themselves. Typosquatting registers domains similar to legitimate ones and waits for typos, pharming redirects traffic by manipulating DNS resolution, and spear phishing is a targeted malicious email, not the compromise of someone else's site.
An employee from marketing has administrator rights on the database server even though they are not needed for the job. Which security principle has been violated?
Least privilege requires that a user has only the privileges necessary for their work tasks, which is clearly not the case here. Separation of duties prevents a single person from completing a critical process alone, defense in depth means layered controls, and job rotation means periodically changing responsibilities to detect abuse.
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Frequently asked questions
Can I take CISSP without any experience? You can sit the exam and become an Associate of ISC2, then you have six years to earn the five years of experience before the certification itself is granted.
Does Security+ count toward the CISSP experience requirement? Yes. It remains on the reduced waiver list after the April 2026 changes, and waives one year of the five.
Is CISSP just a harder Security+? No. Security+ tests whether you can apply the right control, CISSP tests whether you can decide which controls a programme should have. Different questions, not different difficulty levels of the same one.
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