A large consensus in the economic literature has admitted that Small Islands Developing Sates (SIDS) are more vulnerable than others. Academic works have given rise to numerous composite indexes of vulnerability that can be criticized on three main points: (i) Most of these indexes claim to stress the economic dimension of vulnerability while sustainable development has become a momentum; (ii) Though some of these indexes can be interpreted from a sustainable development perspective, they do not simultaneously cover all dimensions of sustainability; (iii) The multiplicity of variables and computation methods used in these indexes raise the question of whether there is a set of variables that consistently describes the state of vulnerability and resilience. This article attempts to reconsider vulnerability-resilience composite indexes in a sustainable development perspective by suggesting the Net Vulnerability-Resilience Index. We test this hierarchical multimetric composite index on a worldwide sample integrating SIDS and non-SIDS. On this holistic basis, we give evidence that SIDS are not specifically more prone to vulnerability than other countries. Moreover, there is no determinism that dictates that a country will remain either vulnerable or resilient despite its intrinsic and structural features.