Keyboard Builders' Digest / Switch trends

Best-selling keyboard switches of August, 2024

August part of this monthly overview of community favorite mechanical switches, based on real sales data provided by vendors and manufacturers.

KBD.news
Published September 6, 2024

Hey fellow switch enthusiasts! Let's continue our monthly series featuring the actual community favorite switches for mechanical keyboards – this time listing August's best-selling switch models.

The article is quite long, feel free to jump to the results if you can't wait.

PSA

• If you missed it, here is the July switch compilation. It has been updated multiple times after publication (e.g. Candykeys, Gateron, Kailh and Mechboards where added much later), feel free to check it out if you browsed the write-up in the early days.
• The collection of all the monthly switch compilations is available too.
• Aggregated top list. Where is it?! 60% of the shops sent me detailed sales data, but believe me, it makes no sense to publish an aggregated best-seller list at this point. I may explain this in my next editorial.

Contributors

Many thanks to all the shops who contributed, in particular Unikeys and Chosfox who joined this initiation for the first time! On the other hand, half of the shops invited (10/20) failed to get back to me in time, partly because of the Labor Day long weekend I guess. I didn't want to wait any longer but may add them later.

The following vendors sent me detailed statistics with sales volumes (thanks for your confidence) so they deserve a little celebration. Clicking these links, in the order the data was received, takes you to their top list:

• Mechboards (UK), UniKeys (CN), BeaverKeys (CA), AKKO (CN), Coffeekeys (IT), and Chosfox (CN)! Plus Keygem (DE) and Mechanicalkeyboards.com (US). :)

And the shops that sent ranking or comment only:

• CandyKeys (DE), Ashkeebs (CA), Milktooth (US), Dangkeebs (US), PKKeyboards (US)

You can find the disclaimer at the bottom of the article, let's jump right in the lists and numbers!

Results

Mechboards [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

Last time you asked for UK vendors, so here you go! (I contacted more shops, but only Mechboards provided data in time, so thanks a lot!)

Gateron Oil Kings remain king for MX switches. We get a lot of people using our lube service on them as well, which is interesting. Seems like they’re the switch for people who want the best of the best. Gateron POM Smoothie as our 5th best selling switch is a nice surprise as we don’t hear much about them. Cherry MX Browns holding strong, at the dismay of Glarses. And Gateron Baby Kangaroo was a new line. We have not advertised it so it’s nice to see it breaking into the top 10 on its first month – Ben.

UniKeys [7% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

Thanks to UniKeys for joining this compilation for the first time and providing excellent insight!

From my perspective, Keygeek and new BSUN switches will be the new trend in the community. As seen in the list, some keygeek and bsun switches already surpassed HMX's sales number. We will be having a few new keygeek, bsun, and HMX switches designed by ourselves, and we expect to see good sales numbers on those too in the near future. All these new switches will be made with Keygeek, BSUN, and HMX's brand-new mold sets – Dashan.

BeaverKeys [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

I just restocked for Aflion Blue Sky which have been quite popular since they are very close to the Invokeys Matcha Green – Peter.

AKKO [5/10% off (US/EU) with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

As always, AKKO EU is one of the most proactive contributors. Last time you pointed out the role of Aliexpress sellers and their lack in these articles, so Albert looked into Akko's Aliexpress sales too, which is their main platform.

Akko.eu/.de

Aliexpress

Coffeekeys [10% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

There's a lot going on at Coffeekeys these days, so many thanks to Matteo for taking the time and sending me detailed data of his sales.

Chosfox [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

Welcome Chosfox on board as a first-time contributor to this series.

Our Poison Gas Tactile Switch V2 is currently the best-selling product among our newly released switches, showing a very positive sales trend – Robin.

Keygem [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

Oil Kings were already low in stock that is why they are not in the top10 this time – Elli.

Mechanicalkeyboards.com [5% off with the KBDNEWSMK(!) coupon code]

CandyKeys

Funny, who thought the demand for old Cherry would be so high? Next time we should buy a few more switches and sit on them for a few years… Seems to be that the HMX hype has slowed down and that now the taste of switches is from all over the block. Looking forward to picking out the new coming switches of the community! – David.

Just checked and I would say our hype-switches of last month were still HMX Retro Series, KBDFans Rollers and Akko Rosewood each with a spike in August – Fabian.

Ashkeebs Design [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

Milktooth

Not much of a change. Xinhais are #7, everything else is unchanged – Kevin.

Dangkeebs [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

PKKeyboards [5% off with the KBDNEWS coupon code]

Top switches for Aug (in no particular order): gateron oil kings, pkkeys misu, hmx sunset gleam, gateron quinns. we just replenished restocked all HMX switches – Kevin.

Disclaimer & Method

Keep in mind that most of the time I'm not in a position to verify the validity and accuracy of the data provided by shop runners. Some of these lists come automatically from their databases, however, some were put together manually. I asked for the numbers of the previous month.

That said, take everything with a grain of salt, but I hope this compilation will still hold some value, highlighting trends, giving you some tips, and as a snapshot of the zeitgeist it will be also interesting to look back at on the long run.

Final thoughts

Hey, I hope this write-up made at least some sense. I not only discovered some switch models I wasn't aware of, but I also learned a lot about some vendors.

And because you made it this far into the article, here's a little surprise:

• There's a new WIP switch database I'm working on and soft-launching now, with all the models mentioned in the top lists above: data sheets, offers of various vendors, converting and tracking prices (well, semi-automatically for now), in-stock info, etc.

Lots of half-baked features, lots of bugs to track down, more offers have to be added too, but maybe some of you will find it useful in this early stage.

(Please don't report issues other than mismatched switches/offers and factual errors, I'm aware of displaying and formatting problems, just like essential features missing.)

Anyway, let me know how you'd improve this series, the format, what vendors would you like to see here next time, etc.

See you next month!

Published on Fri 6th Sep 2024. Featured in KBD #174.

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