Keycaps Guide Top 10
If you're building a keyboard from scratch, you're going to run into keycap profiles eventually. There are a ton of them out there, and most guides just list them without explaining what actually matters when you're standing in the checkout line wondering whether to buy PBT or ABS, Cherry or OEM. Here's what I actually use, why, and where people get it wrong. 1. Cherry Profile (XDA) This is the baseline. Most kits ship with it. It's low, flat, and consistent across the entire row. The keycaps are all the same height, which feels weird at first if you've only ever used mixed-height profiles, but after a month you stop noticing it. The main downside is that the letters on the top row can be hard to read at a glance because they sit so low. I've had people complain about this, and they're usually right. If you have large fingers and type fast, you'll hit the plate before your finger pads clear the key.
2. OEM Profile Again, the default for most pre-builts. Taller than Cherry, slightly rounded. It's the most common profile in existence, which means replacement keycaps are trivial to find. The height is fine for most people, but the curvature is generic. It works. It doesn't feel special. I bought a set of GMK OEM legends on eBay once and the lettering was misaligned by about two millimeters across the entire spacebar. It drove me crazy until I just accepted it. 3. SA Profile
Tall, dome-shaped, vintage. These are the ones that look like they came from a 1980s word processor. They're beautiful, absolutely not ergonomic for actual typing, and they take up enormous desk space. The tall walls mean your fingers catch on adjacent keys constantly. I tried using a full SA set for a week and developed a sore thumb on my left side from missing the spacebar repeatedly. Put them on a keyboard you type on occasionally, not the one you write code on. 4. MT3 Profile MechKeys designed this one and it's essentially a Cherry profile with a slight upward curve on the back edge. It's a small detail but it makes a real difference in how your fingers rest. The back lip of each keycap catches your fingertip just enough to guide your hand back to home row without you thinking about it. This was genuinely the best profile I found after trying about twenty different options over three years. It's not widely available though, which is the problem. If you can find a set in your size, grab it.
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5. K3 Profile Another mechKeys design. Flatter than MT3, closer to DSA but with slightly more texture on the sides. Good for people who want the compactness of DSA but complained that DSA keycaps felt too uniform and flat under their fingers. The texturing on the sides helps with grip, especially if you have dry hands or use a lot of force when you type. The tradeoff is that the texturing collects dust and hair faster than smooth profiles, which is annoying if you're particular about clean keyboards. 6. DSA Profile
Uniformly tall and domed across every row. Simple, clean, inexpensive. The problem with DSA is that the uniform height feels odd if you're used to staggered profiles. Your pinky has to travel the same distance to reach the A key as your index finger reaches the G key, and that's not how your hands naturally work. Some people love it for the simplicity. I find it tiring on long typing sessions because your fingers never find a natural resting height. 7. XDA Profile Flat tops across the entire board, very low profile. It's the same height in every row, similar to Cherry but with wider flat surfaces on each keycap. The advantage is that it looks incredibly clean from the front. The disadvantage is exactly what you'd expect: zero differentiation between rows, so you have to look at the keyboard to know where your fingers are. I use XDA on a secondary keyboard that I only use for gaming, where I'm looking at the screen anyway and not trying to touch type.
8. MHK Profile A newer profile from MechKeys that blends elements of SA and Cherry. Taller than Cherry, flatter than SA, with a gentle curve that's easier on the fingers than either of those individually. Not as well known as the others, so there's less community content about it, but it's solid if you want something in between. The main issue is availability. You're usually ordering from China and waiting six to eight weeks, and if the seller goes quiet mid-production you're stuck. 9. WAMP Profile
Custom profile, not mass-produced. The keys are sculpted with a gentle concave shape on the top surface, and the height varies between rows in a way that's more aggressive than Cherry but less than OEM. It's designed for people who want to feel the key shapes without the vintage bulk of SA. I got a small batch of these through a group buy and the consistency was surprisingly good. The concave tops collect less dust than flat profiles too, which is a minor benefit I hadn't considered before testing it. 10. Custom/Proprietary Profiles Some manufacturers make their own profiles. Akko has CS, Leopold has their own thing, and various smaller companies create profiles that don't fit any standard category. These can be excellent if the designer actually understands ergonomics, but they can also be terrible if they're just making whatever looks cool. The rule of thumb is simple: if the manufacturer has a reputation for actually distributing keyboards rather than just making aesthetics, the profile is probably worth considering. If they only sell through Instagram and AliExpress with no tactile reviews, skip it.
There's one thing most people miss when they're picking a profile: the stem type matters almost as much as the profile itself. A keycap can have the perfect shape but use a cross stem that wobbles on a stabilizer-heavy board, and suddenly your Cherry profile feels like garbage because the F and J keys rattle. I learned this the hard way after buying a nice set of PBT keycaps that fit perfectly on my test board but were loose on my main keyboard. The fix was switching to a universal stem adapter kit, which added about two millimeters of height but eliminated every wobble. Material choice is separate from profile but equally important. PBT feels rougher and sounds deeper when you type. ABS is smooth, shiny after a few weeks, and sounds higher-pitched. The roughness of PBT is actually useful for grip, which matters more than people admit. Smooth ABS keycaps become slippery sweat pads after an afternoon of heavy typing, and that changes how fast and accurately you can type without you realizing it until you switch back. Here's the blunt part that most guides skip: there is no objectively best profile. The Cherry, SA, and MT3 profiles each have people who swear by them and people who can't tolerate them. The right answer depends entirely on your hand size, typing speed, what kind of stem your keyboard uses, and whether you actually look at your keyboard while typing. If you type by sight and hit the keys hard, go with something taller with good side definition. If you touch type and want minimal finger travel, Cherry or XDA will serve you better than anything else.
Don't spend more than you need to on your first set. Keycaps are cheap if you buy generic Chinese sets and expensive if you buy GMK or ePBT, and the difference in experience isn't proportional to the price gap. A fifty-dollar set of PBT will feel better than a hundred-and-fifty-dollar ABS set for most people, regardless of profile. Profile matters more than material or price. Get that right first, then worry about everything else.
