The best website for Security+ is the one that makes you answer questions and perform tasks, not the one with the longest video library. Most people need three things: a course that explains the objectives, a question bank that explains every miss, and somewhere to practise the performance-based tasks. We make SecLern, so it is first on this list. That is a bias you should price in, which is why every other entry says what it does better than us and who should pick it instead.
| Option | Best for | What it costs | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| SecLern | Hands-on PBQs, labs and exam simulations | Free tier; Pro $15/month or $99/year | You want a long video course |
| Professor Messer | A free first explanation of every objective | Videos free; notes and exams paid | You need graded practice |
| Dion Training | Exam-feel practice questions and PBQ sets | Paid per pack or course | You want a simulated desktop |
| CompTIA CertMaster | Vendor-aligned Learn, Labs and Practice | Paid per exam | You are on a tight budget |
| Total Seminars | A long, personality-led video course | $289 for Security+ TotalVideo | You need reps more than lessons |
| Pocket Prep | Phone-sized daily questions | 30 free, then subscription | You need PBQs or full simulations |
| ExamCompass | Free topic quizzes | Free | You need teaching explanations |
| Objectives PDF + r/CompTIA | Coverage checks and peer advice | Free | You want a study plan built for you |
What the exam actually asks for
Security+ SY0-701 is a maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes, a mix of multiple-choice and performance-based questions, with a pass mark of 750 on a 100 to 900 scale. CompTIA retires the English version on 11 June 2027, and the V8 exam is scheduled for 17 November 2026, so the first buying decision is which version you are booking. The SY0-701 exam page carries the current facts and the domain weights.
Those weights are the second buying decision. General security concepts is 12% of the exam, threats and mitigations 22%, architecture 18%, operations 28%, and programme oversight 20%. A resource that does not name the objective it covers cannot tell you whether you are ready; it can only keep you busy. Start with the operations objectives, where the heaviest domain lives.
The short answer
Use a free video course to learn, one question bank to drill, and one place to do performance tasks. If you want the shortest honest stack, watch Professor Messer, drill with SecLern, and check coverage against the official objectives. The table lists what each option is for, what it costs, and when to walk away.
1. SecLern: our pick for hands-on practice
The SY0-701 path holds 6,819 practice questions, 56 performance-based questions, 47 labs and 150 lessons, counted from the live catalogue rather than typed into a marketing page. The labs are browser tasks, not videos, and the version comparison explains what changes if you book V8: you triage an overnight SIEM queue, block a malicious domain at the DNS filter, contain a worm in the right order, or prove a payroll folder is locked down. Each is graded on the state you leave behind.
The free tier is real: 30 study questions a day, three labs, unlimited flashcards and every free tool. Pro is 15 dollars a month or 99 dollars a year, and the 29 dollar Exam Sprint gives 90 days of full access for a booked exam date. There is a 7-day Pro trial with a card. Full exam simulations are Pro-only, which is the honest limit of the free plan.
Good for: someone who has read the material once and freezes when a task has no multiple-choice options. Skip it if you want a 15-hour video course; we do not sell one, and you should not pretend a question bank replaces explanation.
2. Professor Messer: the free course almost everyone should watch
Messer's SY0-701 course is 121 free videos, 15 hours and 11 minutes, published in objective order. The videos are free to watch on the site; course notes and practice exams are paid extras. For a first explanation of every objective, this is the most complete free video course we could verify, and it is the one we recommend even though it competes with us for study time.
Good for: building the vocabulary before you drill, and filling a gap when an explanation did not land. Skip it if you learn by doing rather than watching; the course cannot tell you what you got wrong. Pair it with a question bank the same day, not three weeks later.
3. Dion Training: the practice-exam workhorse
Dion's Security+ practice exam pack offers randomized sets, unlimited attempts and 12 months of access, and includes one set of five PBQs. The separate PBQ Practice Pack holds a bank of 100 PBQ-style questions, served in five-question sets with guided solutions. That is a useful middle step between reading about a firewall and configuring one.
Good for: exam-feel questions with explanations, especially if you catch a sale. Skip it if you want a simulated desktop; the PBQ pack is question practice, not an admin console. It is also not a substitute for reading the objectives, because a question bank only covers what it happens to include.
4. CompTIA CertMaster: the vendor's own materials
CertMaster Learn is CompTIA's interactive e-learning with flashcards and performance-based questions. CompTIA Labs puts you in virtual environments with lab guides aligned to the objectives, and CertMaster Practice is a knowledge assessment plus practice exam. CertMaster Perform bundles Learn, Labs and Practice. Because it comes from the exam owner, the alignment claim is as strong as it gets.
Good for: employer-funded study, procurement departments, and anyone who wants one vendor to be accountable for coverage. Skip it if you are paying yourself or studying for several certifications; it is licensed per exam, and the price reflects the official name. It is also not a second opinion: one vendor's explanation is still one explanation.
5. Total Seminars and Mike Meyers: the long course
Total Seminars sells the Security+ TotalVideo course at 289 dollars: 19-plus hours across 14 chapters and 178 lessons, taught by Mike Meyers, Daniel Lachance and Lyndon Williams, with hands-on labs and exam question reviews. It is the priciest single purchase with a published price on this page, and the most traditional way to learn.
Good for: people who retain from long-form teaching with personality, and who want one purchase to cover the whole syllabus. Skip it if your budget is under 50 dollars, or if you already know the material and need reps rather than another explanation.
6. Pocket Prep: questions on your phone
Pocket Prep's Security+ app gives you 30 questions free, then a subscription for the full bank, with a mock exam, a question of the day and quizzes built from your weakest domain. It runs on iOS, Android and the web.
Good for: the commute, the queue, the ten minutes before a shift. Skip it if you need performance tasks or a full timed sitting; phone-sized recall is a supplement, not a plan.
7. ExamCompass: free topic quizzes
ExamCompass publishes free practice tests split by exam topic, including the current Network+ and Security+ objectives. There is no course and no simulation, just short quizzes you can take in a browser.
Good for: a five-minute check on one weak topic, and free exposure to the wording of exam-style questions. Skip it if you need explanations deep enough to teach; a short answer key is not a lesson.
8. The objectives PDF and r/CompTIA: the free syllabus and the crowd
CompTIA publishes the exam objectives as a free PDF, and the objectives are the only syllabus that matters. The r/CompTIA community is useful for exam-day logistics, study timelines and morale. It is not a source of exam content, and anyone offering leaked questions is risking your certification, not helping it.
Good for: checking that a resource covers every line, and finding people at the same stage. Skip it if you are looking for a structured plan; a forum is a conversation, not a curriculum.
What changes if you book the V8 exam
The version on your appointment decides which material is worth buying, and the two versions overlap for a window. SY0-701 is bookable now and its English version retires on 11 June 2027. V8 opens on 17 November 2026 and, per CompTIA's launch page, adds AI risk topics and moves the domain weights. So "which version is current" is the wrong question. The useful question is "which version is on my booking", and only your Pearson VUE appointment answers it.
Three cases, three stacks. Booking before 17 November 2026: nothing on this page changes. Booking between those dates and June 2027: you can still sit SY0-701 with a SY0-701 stack, and the only risk is a vendor retiring coverage early when V8 ships. Booking after the SY0-701 retirement: buy V8 material only when the product page names V8, and treat "covers Security+" with no version attached as unverified.
The version matters more for question banks than for video. A course that follows the objectives is cheap to update; a bank's value is its mapping, and mapping is invisible until you look for it. Two questions before you pay: does the product name the exam code, and does it say which domain weights it was written against? Our SY0-701 page puts the two versions side by side, and the 701 versus 801 comparison is the long version of the same answer.
How to audit a resource's coverage in one afternoon
Every list like this one tells you what a resource covers. You can check it yourself in about ninety minutes, and the check is worth more than the recommendation.
Open the official objectives and take one page per domain. For every line, write the resource that taught it: a video timestamp, a lesson name, a lab title. Anything you cannot attribute is a gap. The gaps cluster in a predictable way: people usually own the vocabulary domain and under-own operations, which is 28% of this exam and the heaviest single block.
Then test the two heaviest domains instead of the first. Answer twenty questions on operations and twenty on threats, mark confidence honestly, and count how many you got right for the right reason. A resource that leaves you guessing on operations has not covered the exam, whatever its library size. Write the gap list into your plan; the Security+ study plan gives you weeks to paste it into, and the weak-spot method explains why the gap list, not the calendar, should choose tomorrow's session.
One last check costs nothing. Open the SY0-701 lab catalogue and read the task titles. If a resource claims to prepare you for performance tasks, its task list should look like the job. Titles about firewall rules, log triage and control selection are a syllabus. Titles about "security basics" are a landing page.
How we chose
We judged on seven things: realistic performance tasks, hands-on labs, exam simulation, original questions, price, free tier, and format. We ranked by how much of the job each option does, not by traffic or affiliate payout. We did not include leaked question sets: CompTIA's candidate agreement treats unauthorised material as a violation, and a score can be voided. We left out bootcamps because their price and format vary too much to compare honestly in one table, and we left out any price we could not verify on the vendor's own page on 28 October 2026.
Compare the labs hub if you want to see the same practice layer for other certifications. One more rule: no invented weaknesses. If an option is good, the entry says so even when it competes with us. Messer's free course is better than anything we sell for first explanation, and CertMaster's alignment is stronger than ours can be. We are not trying to win every row.
Three stacks, three budgets
Zero dollars: Messer's course, the official objectives, and the SecLern free tier. This works, and it is slow only because nobody is charging you to be consistent.
About one hundred dollars: the same stack plus a discounted practice exam pack, or one month of SecLern Pro in the final month when simulations matter most. Buy one, not three.
Employer-funded: CertMaster Perform plus one independent question bank. Two voices catch a blind spot that one vendor repeats.
What to do this week
Download the objectives and rate your confidence in each of the five domains from one to five. Watch the Messer section for your weakest domain at normal speed, then answer 20 questions on that domain the same day. Book one lab the next day. On the weekend, take a 45-question timed set and review every miss, including the ones you got right by guessing.
Use the Security+ study plan if you want a weekly structure, and the practice-test strategy for how to review a timed set. Book the exam when two fresh timed sets land comfortably above 80 percent and your labs finish clean. Do not book because a repeat set feels easy; repeats measure memory of the set, not readiness for the exam. The exam-day checklist covers the admin, not the studying.