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Choosing the right secure coding training is a crucial decision for your software's security. With so many options, it's easy to get lost.
In this article, we'll provide a clear, head-to-head comparison of Security Journey and SecureFlag so you can select the platform that will best protect your development process.
Who is Security Journey?
Founded in 2016, Security Journey began with a clear mission: to help developers and security teams create more secure software through practical, engaging education.
Since joining forces with HackEDU in 2022, Security Journey has evolved into a smarter, more adaptive enterprise learning platform—putting developers at the center of the experience.
Today, the Security Journey AppSec Education Platform helps teams train faster, focus smarter, and build more secure code through an ecosystem of learning that’s both structured and intelligent.
Security Journey's AppSec Education Platform
The Security Journey AppSec Education Platform is where secure coding education meets intelligence, adaptability, and engagement. Our platform isn’t just a library of lessons—it’s a living, evolving ecosystem designed to grow with your developers and your security program.
A Smarter, More Adaptive Learning Experience
Security Journey gives organizations a complete picture of their AppSec training maturity through Developer Profiles and Knowledge Assessments. These insights allow teams to understand where their developers stand today, identify knowledge gaps, and tailor learning to maximize real-world impact.
Developers are at the center of everything we do. From onboarding to mastery, learners follow a clear progression through hands-on coding lessons, expert-led videos, and interactive assessments that align to real vulnerabilities and frameworks.
Our platform’s multi-modal design ensures every learner—from developers to testers to security professionals—can train in a format that fits their preferred style and experience level. Whether watching a short video, reading a summary, or writing secure code in a live web app, every experience reinforces one goal: building security into the way your teams write, test, and ship software.
Structured to Scale Across Your SDLC
Security Journey provides a multi-year, role-based program with over 800 lessons across 40+ programming languages and frameworks. Each path is strategically structured to meet learners where they are—whether they’re new to secure coding or advancing as Security Champions.
We offer pre-built paths to get your program running fast:
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Role-Based Paths – Targeted training for developers, testers, and other SDLC members based on their real responsibilities.
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Compliance-Based Paths – Support for frameworks and regulations including OWASP, CWE Top 25, and PCI-DSS 4.0 secure coding requirements.
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Topic-Based Paths – Deep dives into specialized areas like AI/LLM security, supply chain, or OWASP Top 10 API.
Administrators can easily customize these paths or combine them with organization-specific content, giving you the flexibility to evolve your training alongside your AppSec strategy.
Built for Measurable Impact
Security Journey makes it simple to measure, prove, and improve. Real-time dashboards and reports visualize progress, highlight knowledge growth, and track risk reduction across individuals and teams. You can filter by any user property to see who’s excelling, who needs support, and where your overall security posture is improving.
Driving Engagement and Culture
Sustained learning takes more than lessons—it takes motivation. That’s why Security Journey includes:
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Tournaments and Capture-the-Flag (CTF) challenges to inspire friendly competition.
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Leaderboards, certificates, and achievements that recognize progress and mastery.
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The Security Champion Passport, empowering teams to grow a lasting security culture through practical, real-world activities.
And behind every customer is a dedicated Customer Success Manager, supported by human and AI-assisted in-product help, plus direct access to our product team to shape future releases.
Security Journey is more than training—it’s a complete, adaptive AppSec education platform that scales knowledge, accelerates skill growth, and strengthens your security posture from the inside out.
Who is SecureFlag?
SecureFlag is a platform focused on practical, lab-based secure coding exercises. It provides a sandbox environment where developers can solve real vulnerabilities in simulated applications.
The company’s approach emphasizes hands-on experience and gamified learning, primarily aimed at developers looking to practice identifying and fixing security issues within code.
While SecureFlag delivers strong technical labs for experienced developers, its content is narrower in focus, with less emphasis on structured learning paths, compliance coverage, or organizational program management.
SecureFlag’s Platform
The SecureFlag Platform offers interactive training through web-based labs that mimic real-world vulnerabilities. Learners write, debug, and secure code in simulated environments, gaining practical exposure to application security issues.
It supports a range of languages and frameworks and offers a gamified interface to encourage participation through points, badges, and challenges.
SecureFlag’s learning model is best suited for technical developers who prefer direct application and hands-on exercises, rather than guided or adaptive learning experiences.
Security Journey vs. SecureFlag
When choosing between Security Journey and SecureFlag, it’s important to understand how their approaches differ. Let’s break down their content, learning methodology, engagement features, and enterprise readiness.
G2 Comparison Tool: Compare SecureFlag and Security Journey →
Technical Depth of Content
Security Journey – Offers a deep, structured curriculum with over 800 lessons that build foundational through advanced knowledge. Covers broad topics like AI/LLM security, supply chain security, and compliance frameworks such as PCI-DSS 4.0 and OWASP.
SecureFlag —SecureFlag offers a large number of labs with limited format variety that the admin must assemble into a logical learning path.
Personalized Training
Security Journey - Features Developer Profiles and Knowledge Assessments to personalize learning paths, ensuring developers train smarter and faster on the most relevant vulnerabilities and risks.
SecureFlag – Labs can be selected manually, but there’s limited adaptive guidance or intelligence to personalize training based on developer progress or performance.
Hands-On Training Capabilities
Security Journey – Customer has access to multiple types of lessons that require coding in a live web app to apply learned concepts with pre-warmed sandboxes for a positive learner experience.
SecureFlag —The SecureFlag Platform contains a large amount of lab-style hands-on content, but the labs can take up to a minute to load.
Customizable Role-Specific Learning Paths
Security Journey – Our platform offers customizable, pre-built paths for compliance, topics, and more than a dozen discrete development team roles.
SecureFlag — SecureFlag offers customizable, pre-built learning paths based on the developers' language, level, or status.
Engagement and Culture-Building
Security Journey – Goes beyond training with tournaments, CTFs, leaderboards, and the Security Champions Passport, helping organizations grow and track their security culture.
SecureFlag - Gamified labs provide immediate engagement through points and rewards but lack broader cultural or program management tools. No function for managing security champion activities.
Analytics & Insights
Security Journey - Rich dashboards and analytics visualize knowledge growth, engagement, and risk reduction over time. Metrics can be filtered by any user property for granular insights.
SecureFlag - Reporting functionality with separate reports for learning paths, labs, learners, competency score, and accuracy score.
Customer Success and Service
Security Journey – Every customer is paired with a dedicated Customer Success Manager and supported by human or AI-assisted in-product help and direct collaboration with our product team.
SecureFlag – Offers customer support and onboarding resources, but dedicated success management is typically limited to enterprise clients.
Enterprise-Grade Features
Security Journey – Includes built-in compliance learning paths for PCI-DSS 4.0, OWASP, and other frameworks, helping teams meet regulatory training requirements. Offers SSO/SCIM, SOC 2 compliant platform, and full WCAG accessibility across all lessons.(read more about security and accessibility)
SecureFlag - Focused on practical coding labs without specific compliance alignment. Offers SSO and enterprise deployment options, but with limited compliance reporting capabilities.
Product Focus
Security Journey – Our team is 100% dedicated to training members of the SDLC to create more secure software.
SecureFlag – SecureFlag is a small company that produces and sells both threat modeling and secure coding training products.
Security Journey vs. SecureFlag: Which is Best?
Finding the perfect secure coding training platform requires careful consideration of your organization's unique needs and budget.
Use The Security Journey vs SecureFlag G2 Comparison Tool Here
Here are some key questions to help you make the best choice:
- Focus - Do you need a comprehensive program that provides ongoing secure coding education for all SDLC roles, or are you depending on your developers to possess the most up-to-date security knowledge?
- Management - How important are ease of deployment and ongoing management? Do you prioritize these aspects or prefer a platform focused on detailed learner scoring?
- Support – What kind of support is included in the base cost?
Read The Article: Essential Features for Your Secure Coding Training Platform: A Checklist for Admins
The decision can be complex, but it's important to find a solution that delivers what your team needs. If you're looking for a platform that encourages ongoing developer engagement, produces securely coded applications, and simplifies long-term management, Security Journey's AppSec Education Platform would be a strong contender.
