After nearly 2 years with the same keeb I have decided it is time to move on and see what else is out there. Maybe you can help!
My workflow is very much keyboard heavy. I live and breath neovim, and the linux terminal.
I also have pretty small hands for a guy, and a lot of RSI issues, so ergonomics is huge.
I like silent, tactile switches. Zilents by Zeel were the best, but Cherry Brown’s are good too. Any shoutouts are welcome!
I am considering the Dactyl Manuform, Ergodox EZ, Moonlander… But I would love to hear opinions. Are there other split boards you have fallen in love with?
Finally, what are your thoughts on buying used vs new?
The last few keyboards I’ve used:
Dygma Defy (almost 2 years) I loved: having a split board with a thumb cluster. Having an underglow to give visual cues like which layer I’m on and different colors for special function keys. I also really liked having macros and superkeys for everything. Probably around 30 different macros, and I used them constantly while coding. What I didn’t like: Extremely buggy. Constant connectivity issues (despite being wired usb-c). The proprietary configurator, Bazecor, is garbage. Would far prefer manually editing a text file ( <3 GMK ). Updating the keymap with a simple “Click Save” is cool, but updating the firmware version itself almost ALWAYS causes the entire thing to stop working until I factory reset and restore from a backup. Not cool. As of this week, it seems to have been bricked and I cannot even reset it anymore.
Kinesis Advantage 2 (Almost 1 year) What I liked: The ergonomics was… ok? But not as great as expected. Split is nice. What I disliked: I never got fast on this one. Not as programmable. Key wells are just weird. The linear switches it came with are probably meant for gamers? Not sure if it came with other options, I got it on ebay.
OLKB Preonic (maybe a year or 2) What I liked Simplicity and ease of use. I got alarmingly fast on this baby. QMK. Small, but not too small. It was just ‘fun’. The ortholinear layout gave a feeling of freedom when designing the keymap, like a blank canvas that got out of your way. I built it myself from a kit, which was fun. What I disliked: Ortholinear layout. Yeah it was easy for designing a layout… but it didn’t actually fit the shape of my hands
Splits and ergos are very much outside my wheelhouse, but I am a big fan of silent tactile switches. There’s tons of choices these days, but here’s a few of my favorites:
TTC Silent Bluish White - overall my favorite. Clean, has a satisfying strong-but-smooth bump (not too alien to the Zeals), and reasonably quiet with a nice “thud” sound. Softer bottom-out than un-dampened switches, but on the firm side of silents. (Not to be confused with the “regular” TTC Bluish White which does not have a dampened top-out.)
TTC Silent Brown V2 - similar to above, but with a more mild bump. Closer to a traditional Brown, but still somewhere between that and the Zeal.
Outemu Silent Lemon V3 - an actually-light tactile, closer to a traditional Cherry Brown than the TTC above. Quiet and mild with a softer bottom-out than the TTCs.
Honorable mentions; great with caveats:
Kailh Deep Sea Whale Islet - I like these almost as much as the Silent Bluish Whites; they sound and feel similar with the added benefit of dust and moisture resistance but the drawbacks of Kailh Box switches; they rest very slightly crooked and can stress the stems of some keycaps if you swap around a lot. Naming on these is very inconsistent; the tactile ones have translucent brown stems. Kailh’s silents are also on the firm side of bottom-out like TTC’s. My favorite “workhorse” switch for heavy use in or out of the office, but I probably wouldn’t put them on I board I like to show off or display.
Kailh Midnight Pro Silent Tactile - I love the sound and feel of these (pretty similar to the Silent Bluish whites, but maybe even more smooth out of the box), and while they skip the slight crooked resting position of the Box type switches, these are actually worse than modern Box switches for stressing cap stems; highly recommend sending these through the Geon Trimmer tool before mounting any keycaps on them.
Gazzew Boba / U4 - Worth a mention; this family and adjacent switches really blazed the trail of bringing silents to the mainstream, and for a time, I think they were the best around. They’ve since been succeeded in terms of overall quality; there are more consistent, more stable, and even a few more quiet switches out there - but they’re still pretty great. U4s have a big round bump not too unlike the Silent Bluish Whites but a much softer bottom and top-out, and while they’re a bit less stable, they’re also more quiet.
So, reading between the lines a bit, sounds like something that’s not a world apart from the Defy would suit you, as long as the software is better.
THIS guide is getting long in the tooth, but it’s got some good stuff. Here is one with a more structured approach. A few that jumped out as potential options:
KeebIO Iris
Lily 58
Any of the offerings from ZSA, though I don’t think any of them tuck thumb keys under the main clusters like the Defy.
Minidox or Redox
BastardKB Dilemma MAX, but take a look at all their offerings if a less intense keywell than the Kinesis sounds nice.
I’d have said the Link or Altair/Altair-X from Cannonkeys, but unfortunately you missed the group buy window for the former and the extras for the latter by about a week. That said, there should be extras of the Link when the group buy fulfills in Q4 2025 or maybe Q1 2026.
You can also look at SplitKB’s Kyria or Elora; they also do the Lily that @wjrii mentioned. They have some relatively easy kits now.
