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Preface

Each material has its own general distinct sound signature and level of smoothness. In that same vein, each manufacturer’s blend and execution of the same material will yield different sound signatures and levels of smoothness. There are, however, oversimplified patterns of note drawn throughout the history of the materials being implemented in switch manufacturing as well as the manufacturers’ general switch characteristics, and that is precisely what this directory aims to highlight. Take this directory with a grain of salt - as mentioned, most of this list will be gross oversimplifications of switch experiences that have been boiled down all throughout, and will definitely have glossed over some details that were either missed or slightly mischaracterized due to oversimplification. That is to say, this hobby is evolving at a much faster rate than ever before with a myriad of different manufacturers, material compositions, vendors, designers, etc., and these simplified general statements will be made more and more obsolete as time goes on.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This directory is also based on my extremely subjective experience and perception, and thus needs to be taken with a grain of salt. According to you, none of these are definitive truths yet until you’ve had hands-on experience with them and can verify them yourself. This exists to only serve as another data point of subjective experience for you to compare and contrast with others within the keyboard community as well as yourself.

This page serves as a running list of everything switch-related that I’ve been able to learn from the years I’ve been around the mechanical keyboard hobby. This includes an aggregated directory of all of the switches I’ve had extensive experience with and all that I’ve been able to learn from them. Of course, there are a sea of switches out there, and this list is only meant to be logged as a most-representative list of all of those switches that are available out there. That is to say, some less-notable variants of the included switches (Cherry clear top white/black bottom, Gateron clear top white/black bottom, Kailh clear top white bottom, etc.) will be excluded, in favor of the most interesting and representative in terms of getting the point across regarding the material composition, sound, smoothness, etc.

Switch Directory

Whole Switches

Data Table

Footnotes

• PC: Polycarbonate. This material and specific blend compositions vary the most between manufacturers (e.g. JWK polycarbonate vs. Tecsee polycarbonate vs. BSUN polycarbonate) and even between switch lines by the same manufacturer (e.g. Gateron’s Ink polycarbonate vs. milky polycarbonate vs. KS-3 polycarbonate).
• Kailh operates under the business name of Kaihua Electronics.
• JWK, Everglide, Durock, Jwick (and potentially others), are brand distributors that all operate under the business manufacturing and designing umbrella of Dongguan Jwick Electronic Technology, and thus all switches manufactured by any of those aforementioned branches are conveniently referred to by me under the “Manufacturer” section of the Directory above as Jwick.
• BSUN and Yok are both product lines that are sold from the same business umbrella of Dongguan Bsun Electronics, who also manufactured the famous Invyr-designed Panda linear switches.
• Interesting fact (if true) - the founder of Jwick Electronic Technology was one of the two original co-founders of Gateron Electronic Technology, whose first debut switches after Gateron’s post-ousting NDA hold include a budget replica of Gateron’s very own ZealPC Tealios (sold to the vendor KBDFans, infamously dubbed the “Stealios” switch/controversy), both the T1 tactile and the L1/L2/L3/L4/L5/L6/L7 linears sold under the more legitimate distributor name of Durock. After the highly-publicized Stealios controversy, the vendor PrimeKB contacted the manufacturer of these switches - namely Jwick - and asked for design and manufacturing of a new switch. Under that very business umbrella, the distributor name JWK’s first debut switch was the birthchild of that collaboration - the notorious Alpaca.
• FBB is a derivative design brand that commissions manufacturing from other well-known brands (for example, the F1 and F2 are manufactured by KTT, the F3 is manufactured by SWK, the F4 is manufactured by BSUN).
• Cherry is German.