The Certified Site Reliability Professional (CSRP) is a beginner, vendor-neutral certification for the people getting started in site reliability engineering. It validates that you understand SRE foundations such as SLOs and error budgets, can work with monitoring and observability, understand incident management, can reason about reliability engineering, understand automation and toil reduction, and grasp the culture that makes SRE work. The exam is computer adaptive and performance-based, and the credential is kept current through continuing education.
| Level | Beginner. An entry credential: it establishes solid SRE fundamentals and assumes no prior SRE experience, though some operations or software background helps. |
|---|---|
| Delivery model | Computer adaptive, three stages. Your score on each stage selects the difficulty of the next, so no two candidates sit the same paper. |
| Format | 60 questions. A performance-based exam that includes performance-based questions and multiple-choice questions. Concepts transfer across every stack and tool. |
| Time | 90 minutes for the whole exam, timed. Autosaves every answer. |
| Scoring | You need a score of 700 out of 900 to pass. Results are reported on a scale of 100 to 900, and 700 corresponds to answering 72% of the exam correctly. Harder questions carry more weight, so a score means the same thing on any route. Multiple-response items and PBQs are all or nothing. |
| Retakes | No waiting period after a failed first attempt. Every attempt is paid for at the exam price. See the CertLabz Certification Retake Policy. |
| Voucher validity | 12 months from purchase, for one sitting. |
| Certification validity | 3 years. Renew with 35 CEUs per cycle and the $25 annual CE fee, or pass the current exam. Renewal details. |
| Language | English. |
| Credential | PDF certificate with QR code, public verification page, LinkedIn-ready credential ID. Issuer: CertLabz Certification Board. |
| Free resources | The exam objectives PDF and the ten sample questions PDF. |
| Workforce mapping | NICE Framework work roles: Systems Administration (IO-WRL-005), Infrastructure Support (PD-WRL-004). O*NET occupations: Network and Computer Systems Administrators (15-1244.00), Software Developers (15-1252.00). Self-declared by CertLabz, not reviewed by NIST or CISA. See the full mapping. |
A signed, verifiable:
The CSRP is a performance-based exam: it includes performance-based questions alongside multiple-choice questions. Instead of only picking A, B, C or D, you match concepts to their meaning, order an incident response, fix a reliability gap, and choose the right signal. It is computer adaptive, is proctored and timed, needs no mandatory course, and tests understanding SRE rather than reciting definitions.
SLIs, SLOs, error budgets, toil, metrics, logs, traces and the golden signals.
On-call, incident response, severity, escalation and blameless postmortems.
Redundancy, capacity, scaling, failure modes and graceful degradation.
Automation, runbooks, SRE culture and continuous improvement.
Site reliability skills open a fast-growing, well-paid path in operations and platform engineering. Every route is shown here at once, so nothing is hidden behind a control you have to find.
United States pay reported by Glassdoor, checked September 2026. Pay varies by location, employer and experience. No certification guarantees a salary or a job.
| CertLabz CSRP | DevOps Institute SRE Foundation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Certification exam | Certification exam |
| Computer adaptive | Yes | No |
| Hands-on PBQs | Yes | No |
| Scope | Site reliability engineering | SRE foundation |
| Vendor neutral | Yes | Yes |
| Proctored | Yes | Yes |
| Questions | 80 | 40 |
| Time | 120 min | 60 min |
| Pass mark | 700 of 900 | 65% |
| Course required | No | Usually bundled |
| Exam voucher | $99 | $245 and up |
Compiled September 2026 from the DevOps Institute SRE Foundation pages, a multiple-choice exam usually sold bundled with training. The CSRP is a standalone, computer adaptive exam with hands-on performance-based questions at a lower price. Product names and trademarks belong to their owners; CertLabz is not affiliated with any of them. Confirm current details with each provider.
Six reasons this credential is worth your time, and worth an employer's attention.
One price for the exam, set by its level. Bundles add the study guide and hands-on practice at a saving.
Secure checkout by Stripe. Prices in USD. Sign in or create a free CertLabz account at checkout.
Every form is drawn from a bank of more than 90 items to these exact weights, whichever adaptive route you take. Filter by the area you want to study.
The exam runs in three stages. Your score on each stage selects the difficulty of the next, so a strong candidate is stretched and a struggling one is measured fairly rather than swamped. No two candidates sit the same paper. Harder questions carry more weight, so a scaled score means the same thing whichever route you took.
Each exam can have up to 5 to 12 performance-based questions, drawn fresh on every attempt, alongside the multiple-choice questions. A PBQ is a task rather than a list: you match concepts to their meaning, order an incident response, fix a reliability gap, or choose the right signal. They are scored all or nothing, so partial guesses do not pass.
No. The CSRP is a beginner credential that establishes SRE fundamentals. Some operations or software background helps, but no prior SRE role is required.
Yes. Tools and platforms are described generically. Where a concept such as the golden signals is involved, it is described by what it means, not tied to one product.
700 out of 900. Results are reported on a scale of 100 to 900, and 700 corresponds to answering 72% of the exam correctly.
There is no waiting period between a failed first attempt and a second attempt. Buy another voucher and sit the exam again when you are ready, and it will draw a fresh adaptive form from the bank. See the CertLabz Certification Retake Policy.
Yes, after three years. Keep it current by logging 35 CEUs during the cycle and paying the $25 annual CE fee before expiry, or by passing the current exam again.
The exam objectives PDF and the ten sample questions PDF. The CSRP Official Study Guide is a $50 ebook, included in two of the bundles. Hands-on practice comes with the All Access plan, included in the Complete bundle.
A laptop or desktop with a webcam and microphone, Chrome, Edge or Firefox, a stable connection, and a quiet private room for 90 minutes. Phones and tablets are not supported.
CSRP is a continuing-education certification, like the CE credentials from CompTIA and ISC2. It is valid for three years from the day you pass. To keep it, log 35 continuing-education units during the cycle and pay the $25 annual CE fee before your expiry date. Or pass the current version of the exam again. Earning a higher-level CertLabz certification renews it too, the way CompTIA certifications stack.
CEUs are logged from your CertLabz dashboard with supporting evidence. A certification that lapses can be reinstated only by passing the current exam.
Buy a voucher, study the objectives, sit the exam when you are ready. Your credential is issued the moment you pass.