The invention discloses a software reliability designing method driven by defects. According to the method, defect data of similar software are collected for recognizing potential defects in the software, make defect classification standards and establish a software detect model bank. On the basis of the detect model bank, causes of defects are perfected through software fault tree analysis (SFTA), and improvement measures are made according to the causes of defects, so that the implementation of a software reliability design technology is guided. According to the method disclosed by the invention, the implementation blindness of the software reliability design technology is overcome, the pertinence of a software reliability design is improved, the software reliability design can be carried out more effectively, defects can be prevented to the greatest extent and avoided as early as possible, the follow-up test and repair cost is greatly reduced, and the reliability of the software is improved more effectively.