AWS offers two professional level certifications, and on paper they look like twins. Both deliver 75 questions in 180 minutes. Both cost 300 USD. Both score you from 100 to 1,000 and ask for 750 to pass. The difference is the job each one describes, and that difference should decide which you take first.
Side by Side
| SAP-C02 Solutions Architect Professional | DOP-C02 DevOps Engineer Professional | |
|---|---|---|
| Questions | 75, of which 65 are scored | 75, of which 65 are scored |
| Time | 180 minutes | 180 minutes |
| Fee | 300 USD | 300 USD |
| Passing score | 750 on a 100 to 1,000 scale | 750 on a 100 to 1,000 scale |
| Scoring model | Compensatory | Compensatory |
| Recommended experience | 2 or more years using AWS to design and implement cloud solutions | 2 or more years provisioning, operating, and managing AWS environments, plus software development lifecycle and scripting experience |
| Domains | 4 | 6 |
| Languages | 6 | 4, with Korean discontinued after December 31, 2026 |
| Version status | SAP-C03 registration opens October 27, 2026 | No update notice on the certification page |
Every row comes from the official exam guides and certification pages on aws.amazon.com. Confirm the details when you book, because they are subject to change.
The Domains Tell You the Job
SAP-C02 has four domains:
- Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity, 26 percent
- Design for New Solutions, 29 percent
- Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions, 25 percent
- Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization, 20 percent
DOP-C02 has six:
- SDLC Automation, 22 percent
- Configuration Management and IaC, 17 percent
- Resilient Cloud Solutions, 15 percent
- Monitoring and Logging, 15 percent
- Incident and Event Response, 14 percent
- Security and Compliance, 17 percent
Read the verbs. SAP-C02 asks you to design, improve, and migrate. DOP-C02 asks you to automate, configure, monitor, and respond. One is the person who decides what the platform should look like across fifty accounts and three Regions. The other is the person who makes it deploy itself, watch itself, and heal itself.
Same Format, Different Question
Both exams write long scenarios with plausible wrong answers, and both reward reading the constraint before the options. What differs is what the constraint is about.
A typical SAP-C02 stem describes an organization, a network, a compliance sentence, and a recovery objective, then asks which design meets every requirement with the least operational overhead. The wrong answers are usually real designs that break one stated constraint, such as an account boundary, a bandwidth figure, or a recovery time.
A typical DOP-C02 stem describes a pipeline, a deployment, or an incident, then asks how to automate the fix or detect the problem sooner. The wrong answers are usually steps that would work but need a human, run in the wrong order, or leave a gap in the audit trail.
If you enjoy drawing boxes and arguing trade offs, SAP-C02 will feel natural. If you enjoy making the boxes deploy themselves, DOP-C02 will.
What Each Exam Leaves Out
Both exam guides publish a list of job tasks that are out of scope for the target candidate, and the lists are revealing.
Out of scope for SAP-C02: frontend development for mobile apps, the 12-factor app methodology, and in-depth knowledge of operating systems.
Out of scope for DOP-C02: advanced networking knowledge such as advanced routing algorithms and failover techniques, deep security recommendations to developers, designing and optimizing database performance, and full-stack application code.
That second list is the clearest signal in this comparison. The networking and database design work that DOP-C02 rules out is central to SAP-C02. Transit Gateway routing, Direct Connect resiliency, hybrid DNS, and choosing the right database for a workload fill a large share of the architect exam. If that is where you are weakest, SAP-C02 will make you learn it, and DOP-C02 will not.
Where They Overlap
There is real overlap, which is why passing one makes the other easier:
- AWS Organizations, multi-account governance, and service control policies
- Deployment strategies such as blue/green, canary, and rolling updates
- Infrastructure as code with AWS CloudFormation, including StackSets across accounts
- Monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch and compliance tracking with AWS Config
- Resilience, backup, and disaster recovery thinking
The overlap is broad but not deep in the same places. SAP-C02 asks which deployment strategy fits the business requirement. DOP-C02 asks how to build the pipeline that performs it and roll it back automatically when an alarm fires.
So Which One First?
Take SAP-C02 first if your title is architect, consultant, technical lead, or pre-sales engineer, or if you want to move into one of those roles. It is also the right first pick if your weak spots are networking, multi-account design, or migration planning, because those are the areas DOP-C02 will never force you to learn.
Take DOP-C02 first if you are a DevOps engineer, platform engineer, or SRE and you spend your week in pipelines, deployments, and incident response. The exam will reward what you already do, and a pass comes faster.
If you plan to take both, the order matters less than the gap between them. The shared material on Organizations, CloudFormation, deployment strategies, and monitoring stays fresh for a few months, so book the second exam soon after the first.
The 2026 Timing Factor
This year there is one more input. AWS has announced SAP-C03, with registration opening October 27, 2026, and SAP-C02 remains available until mid November 2026. The DevOps Engineer Professional certification page shows no equivalent update notice today.
So if you want to sit the architect exam against the current, published SAP-C02 blueprint, it is the one with a deadline. A candidate who plans both and is already partway into architect preparation should take SAP-C02 first and DOP-C02 afterwards. If you are starting from zero, read our SAP-C02 vs SAP-C03 guide before you pick a date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SAP-C02 harder than DOP-C02?
They are hard in different ways. SAP-C02 covers a wider range of services and asks you to weigh competing designs. DOP-C02 goes deeper into automation and operations. Most people find harder whichever exam sits further from their daily work. For the architect exam specifically, see SAP-C02 exam difficulty and pass rate.
Do I need an associate certification first?
Neither exam has a formal prerequisite. Both guides recommend two or more years of relevant AWS experience instead.
Do both exams use the same question types?
Yes. Both use multiple choice with one correct answer and multiple response with two or more, and both include 10 unscored questions that are not identified.
How long are the certifications valid?
AWS requires you to recertify every three years, for both.
Next Steps
If the architect exam is your first pick, see where you stand with the free 20-question SAP-C02 practice test. It is written at full exam depth with a full explanation on every item and no signup. When you are ready for the full rehearsal, the SAP-C02 mock exam bundle gives you 8 timed 180-minute mock exams of 75 questions each plus that free sample, 620 unique questions in total, each exam scored against the same 750 bar.
Going the DevOps route instead? Start with the DOP-C02 exam guide and the DevOps Engineer Professional mock exam bundle.