Comptia Sec+ v ISC2 CC

This is a massup you probably didn't know you cared about. You should care about it(maybe). I'm going to give you my perception on both and my personal opinion on which you should get and why.

Security Plus (sec+)

Everyone knows the security+. Not sure how or why but Comptia has made this cert the gold standard for entry level security. Also if you want to get into government work it's part of the security standard pushed on companies.

I took the 500 level Sec+ exam. Back then it took me forever to sit down and study, delaying my test for 6 months. Back in 2019 I really had no excuse taking that long to study seeing as how I was doing security all through college, was still in the space through grad, and had taken 3 networking classes at that point (one being advance network security). If you give yourself 3months I have faith that you too can power through a different level of watching paint dry (studying). lol

If I could come here and say something a bit off topic about this cert...I think people feel like this is the only IT-ish cert to get and that just isn't true. Get the cert to open the door if you into more of the security things. If you don't have direct interest in that Comptia has some great roadmaps on their other certs so that you can get the job you want. The money won't make the job more enjoyable if you don't like the work.

Certified Cybersecurity (CC)

I don't know if many people know about this cert. I didn't really know about it but everyone tells me about CISSP. The reason I decided to sit for this cert (date TBD) is because I wanted get a feel for ISC2 certs (I'm looking at the compliance certs one day) and it was free. As of writing this I still think they are doing their free cert give-a-way. You take their class and then get a voucher.

The class wasn't too bad. Life was life-ing and I almost forgot I started it. Overall it took me about 13hrs to push through the material. You gotta remember I work adjacent to security every day and just renewed my sec+ earlier this year. I'm not saying I didn't learn anything, BUT I am saying that it was a good refresher course for me and mostly just set me up to have better vocabulary. With the free voucher deal you get 120 days to complete the course. Again I don't think you need more than 90 days.

If I had to be extremely honest here I found studying for the CC was waaay easier than the sec+. I found the class to be the right mix of words to videos to situations. I would tell myself I'd only do 5 lessons and end up finishing multiple modules within a section. I just think the info is presented in better bite-sized chunks than anything I did for the sec+. NOTE: I have no experience with the initial class for the sec+, but I took continuing education and it was just a wall of text. That is the class experience I'm comparing.

So get both?

Nope! I think sec+ holds more weight so it should be the one that you pay and sit for. I like the questions of the ISC2 exams though. They made me think about more about the questions because I needed to actually pay attention to what was being asked. I treated the sec+ like the ACT, find what you need and keep it pushing.

As long as the CC is still free I say give it a shot. This is a great chance to learn the style of ISC2 exams and learning. I find it funny that Comptia runs entry level certs, but ISC2 runs the gold standard, I'm a boss certs. I'm not sure if the government will ever leave Comptia, but I'm wondering if other industries will start accepting the CC in place of the sec+. The material is very similar but there is no "hands-on" portion of questions for the exam.

Your guess about the future of this stuff is as good as mine. If I could leave you with any type of advice it would be buy classes for both, make sure you feel solid on the security basics, and then take the sec+.