Reading the numbers
The comparator gives you four numbers per switch. Three of them are useful and one of them is misread constantly. Here is what each column is actually telling you, and how to turn "I want something quieter" into a filter that answers it.
Actuation force is not how heavy it feels
Force is quoted in grams and describes the point where the switch registers a keypress. It is the number everyone compares, and on its own it is the weakest predictor of how a keyboard feels to type on, because it describes one instant of a movement you make thousands of times a day.
What it is genuinely good for is ruling things out at the extremes. Under about 45g you will bottom out constantly and may trigger keys by resting your fingers; over about 65g your hands will notice after an hour. In this catalogue that range is most of the field — the lightest is 35g, the heaviest 75g, and the difference between two switches four grams apart is not something you will feel in a blind test.
Treat force as a band, not a figure. Pick a range, then decide on something else.
Travel is the number that changes your typing
Total travel is how far the key moves from rest to the bottom. It varies far less than force does — this catalogue spans 3.2mm to 4.0mm, less than a millimetre across every switch listed — but that fraction is the difference you notice first, because it applies to every keystroke over the entire distance rather than at a single point.
Shorter travel feels faster and more abrupt; longer travel feels deeper and more cushioned. If you are coming from a laptop keyboard, everything here will feel long. If you are coming from a full-size mechanical board, 3.2mm will feel clipped for about a week and then normal.
Stem material is the one to actually read
The stem is the moving part that slides inside the housing, and its material determines how the movement feels more than either number above:
- POM is self-lubricating and the default for a reason. It is what most of this catalogue uses, and it is the safe answer.
- Nylon appears here on the clicky switches, where the sound is the point rather than the smoothness.
- UHMWPE and the INK housing blends are the enthusiast options: noticeably smoother out of the box, noticeably more expensive, and the reason the price column has a long tail.
Turning a want into a filter
The filters exist so you do not have to hold four variables in your head. Some worked examples:
- "Quieter, for an office." Type: Silent. That is the whole filter — silent switches have dampening built into the stem, and no amount of force or travel filtering substitutes for it.
- "Smooth, and I do not care what it costs." Type: Linear, price band $10+. Three or four switches, all of them good.
- "Cheap enough to buy a hundred." Price band under $5, then sort by force. The catalogue's price is per ten, so multiply by ten for a full board.
- "Something I can feel, but not hear." Type: Tactile, and ignore the clicky ones entirely — clicky and tactile are different things, and the click is a separate mechanism, not a louder bump.
What this catalogue is, and is not
Twenty-four switches, with force, travel, stem and price taken from vendor specification sheets. That is a deliberate limit: these are the numbers a manufacturer publishes and can be held to, so the comparator can be checked. Nothing here is a measured sound level, a subjective smoothness score, or a star rating, because those would be invented.
What that means in practice: use the filters to get from twenty-four to three, then buy three switches — not a hundred — and decide with your hands. The compare view holds four side by side, and the shop links search each retailer by name so you can check what is actually in stock.
Prices and availability change constantly; the specifications do not. The catalogue's last update is shown in the footer of the comparator.