CompTIA Security+ vs ISC2 CISSP: Which One Should You Get?

Security+ and CISSP sit at opposite ends of the same career, and treating them as competing options is the most common mistake candidates make when they pick a next certification. One is the door into security work. The other is the credential a senior hiring committee expects from someone who has already been doing that work for years. This page lays out who each one actually serves, the honest order to earn them in, and the one case where skipping straight to CISSP is the right call.

Who should get Security+

Get Security+ if you are early in your IT career and want the fastest recognized path into a first security role. CompTIA requires nothing to sit the exam, though it recommends candidates already hold Network+ and have roughly two years in a security or sysadmin role first. At $439 for the voucher, it costs roughly 60 percent of what CISSP does, and its 90-question, 90-minute exam rewards weeks of focused study rather than years of accumulated work history. Security+ also clears the Department of Defense’s 8140 baseline at the early-career work roles where federal and contractor postings most often name it (CISSP appears in the same qualification matrix, at more senior work roles), and it maps to the information security analyst occupation this site tracks under BLS code 15-1212, the same occupation CISSP maps to further down the ladder.

Who should get CISSP

Get CISSP once you have already put in years of real security work and need a credential that documents it. ISC2 requires five cumulative years of paid experience across at least two of the eight CISSP domains before the certification is actually awarded, with one year waivable through an approved four-year degree or another ISC2-recognized credential. That experience requirement, not the exam content, is the real gate: the computerized adaptive test runs 100 to 150 questions over three hours and assumes you have lived the material, not just studied it. At $749 for the exam plus a mandatory $135 Annual Maintenance Fee that starts in year one, CISSP also costs meaningfully more than Security+, on top of years you cannot buy your way around. If your experience has not caught up yet, ISC2’s Associate of ISC2 path lets you pass the exam now and hold Associate status for up to six years while you accumulate the rest.

The honest sequencing answer

For nearly everyone, “both, in order” is the honest answer, and Security+ first is the right order almost every time. Security+ gets you into a security role in the first place, and the years you spend in that role become exactly the experience CISSP later requires you to document. Jumping straight to CISSP without that runway leads to one of two outcomes: years in Associate-of-ISC2 limbo waiting for experience to catch up to a test you already passed, or a failed attempt at an exam whose scenario questions assume judgment you have not built yet, since a passing score alone does not shortcut the work.

The one real exception is someone who already has five years of adjacent security experience, say from the military or a compliance role, but no certification yet to show for it. That person can reasonably aim straight at CISSP, since an entry-level credential would undersell experience they already hold, and Security+ would add cost and time without adding anything a hiring manager cannot already see on the resume.

What the numbers do not show you

The facts table above shows both exams landing on the same three-year renewal clock, but the renewal burden is not actually equivalent once you look past the calendar. Security+ renewal can trend toward nothing in dedicated spend if you keep earning higher CompTIA certifications, since each one automatically renews the ones below it and waives the fee. CISSP’s $135 Annual Maintenance Fee is fixed and recurring no matter what else you earn: across nine years that is $1,215 you will pay regardless of how many free CPE credits you log. Budget for that fee on its own line; it is easy to remember the exam cost and forget the AMF never goes away.

Common mistake

Do not let a job posting that lists both certifications as “preferred” push you into attempting CISSP before the experience exists. ISC2 built the Associate of ISC2 path specifically because this is common, and passing early without the years behind you means holding a score that will not convert to full certification until your work history catches up on its own timeline, which no amount of extra studying speeds up. Earn Security+, do the work it opens the door to, and let CISSP document years you have actually put in rather than a bet that they will happen eventually.