Free tool · No signup

Find your next cybersecurity
certification in about two minutes.

Tell it your role, seniority, experience, and what you already hold — get a staged roadmap of what to pursue now, what's next, and what's a longer-term goal. Built by a working security operations leader, not a certification vendor.

85+ certifications tracked Staged Now → Next → Stretch roadmap DoD 8570/8140 aware No email required
01
Tell it about you

Current role and seniority, years of IT/security experience, an optional career goal, and what you already hold.

02
Get a staged roadmap

Recommendations grouped into Now, Next, and Later/stretch — with match strength, difficulty, and study time for each.

03
Dig into specifics

See why each cert was picked, what alternatives exist, and — for anything not recommended — exactly why not.

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Security Career Pathfinder

Build your cybersecurity certification roadmap.

Role, seniority, experience, goals, and what you already hold — turned into a staged plan: what to pursue now, what's next, and what's a longer-term stretch, with match confidence, difficulty, study time, and skills for each.

Your profile

If this differs from your current role, recommendations lean toward where you're headed.
Government and contractor roles often require DoD 8570/8140 baseline-approved certs — flagged below when relevant.
If you don't select any, we'll assume you don't hold any certifications yet.
I don't hold any certifications yet

Your certification roadmap

NO SCAN RUN YET
Fill in your profile on the left and build your roadmap — staged from what to pursue now through longer-term stretch goals.

Frequently asked questions

Is this actually free?
Yes. No signup, no email required, no paywall. It's a lead-generation tool for DarkApex's cybersecurity consulting practice, not a paid product.
How are the recommendations generated?
A rules-based scoring engine — not AI-generated guesses. It weighs your role, seniority, years of experience, and optional career goal against a hand-curated database of 85+ certifications (cross-referenced against Paul Jerimy's widely-used Security Certification Roadmap), factoring in real prerequisites like required experience or "must already hold X" gates.
Do you store or sell my answers?
No account, no database, no tracking of your inputs. Everything runs client-side in your browser and disappears when you close the tab.
Who built this?
DarkApex — a cybersecurity consulting practice run by a Director of Security Operations and Deputy CISO with 15+ years in the field. This tool reflects the same career-planning thinking that goes into the security programs we build for clients.
What if it recommends something I can't actually pursue yet?
That's the "Later/stretch" section — certifications above your current tier, or gated behind experience/prerequisites you don't have yet, are labeled as such with an explanation, not hidden. There's also a search box after you run a scan that explains why any specific certification wasn't recommended.
Found a bad recommendation, or have an idea to improve this?
This runs on a hand-maintained database, so mistakes happen — wrong tier, outdated info, a cert that should be here but isn't. If something looks off, or you've got a suggestion, email me directly — I read every one.
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