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A silent switch has rubber or silicone pads on the stem so it does not strike bare plastic at either end of its travel. Both the bottom-out and the return are damped, which is what makes them quiet: almost all of a keyboard’s noise is those two impacts.
They are the right answer to a real problem. If you share an office, share a room, or take calls, a silent switch is the difference between a keyboard being fine and being a thing people mention.
The trade-off is honest and worth knowing before you buy. Something compressible now sits where the plastic used to stop, so the bottom of the press feels slightly soft or mushy rather than crisp, and the sharp bottom-out that the current generation of switches is built around is exactly what the damping removes. A silent switch is quieter and less defined, and no amount of tuning gets both.
17 of the 94 switches indexed here, from 35 gf to 55 gf. 11 have at least one force figure left blank, because the sources disagreed or published something impossible.
Wingtree
A silent linear at 35 gf actuation and 45 gf bottom-out, factory lubed, 3.8 mm of travel. Silencing is done with silicone on the stem, so both the bottom-out and the return are damped, and the switch gives up some of the crispness a non-silent linear has in exchange. Light and quiet is a shared office combination rather than a sound-test one.
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KTT
A light silent tactile at 40 gf, which is unusual: most tactiles start heavier because the bump needs force behind it to be felt. The compromise here is a gentle bump rather than a sharp one, so it reads as texture in the travel rather than a distinct step. The same POM and TPE stem as the Phantom does the silencing. The vendor's spec block lists two actuation figures, so only the 40 gf from the product name is recorded.
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Wingtree
A silent light tactile from the Wingtree and Lichicx line: silicone dampening quiets both the bottom-out and the return while keeping a soft bump. PC top, nylon bottom, POM stem, 40 gf actuation and 55 gf bottom-out on a 16 mm spring, over 3.6 mm. Silent tactiles trade crispness for quiet, so the bump reads softer than on an undamped switch with the same figures.
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Wingtree
A light, short silent linear from the Wingtree and Lichicx line, with silicone dampening on the stem to quiet the bottom-out and the return. PC top, nylon bottom, POM stem, 40 gf actuation and 48 gf bottom-out, and only 2.9 mm of total travel on a 20 mm spring. Short travel plus damping makes each press shallow and soft: quiet, but it can feel mushy to fast typists.
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KTT
A silent linear built around a POM and TPE composite stem, where the TPE does the dampening rather than separate pads. 43 gf to actuate and 55 gf to bottom out, so the press builds noticeably towards the end instead of staying flat. The quietest category of switch there is, and priced low enough that silencing a full board does not become a project in itself.
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Cherry
Cherry's silent tactile, and a departure from the company's reputation for restraint: 45 gf with a 1.9 mm pre-travel and a bump you can actually feel. Cherry's silencing is built into the stem and housing rather than added as pads, which is why it does not feel as damped as most silent switches. Factory lubed. If Cherry MX Brown always felt vague to you, this is the same idea done properly and quietly.
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Cherry
An MX2A-generation silent linear with an RGB-friendly clear housing, aimed at boards with per-key lighting where a milky housing would muddy the colour. 45 gf, 1.6 mm pre-travel, and an extra-polished top housing that Cherry uses to smooth the stem's travel rather than relying on lubricant. The vendor lists a 100 gf bottom-out force, which is implausible for a switch that actuates at 45 gf and is almost certainly a typo, so that figure is deliberately not recorded here.
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Gateron
Gateron's silent linear at a light 45 gf, and one of the easier ways to make a loud board quiet without rebuilding it. Silencing a switch means putting rubber where plastic would otherwise hit plastic, and that always costs a little crispness: the bottom-out feels slightly cushioned rather than firm. The KS-9 3.0 handles that trade better than most, helped by a dual-stage spring that keeps the press from going mushy near the end. A sensible pick for an office, or for anyone typing next to someone else.
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Wingtree
A silent tactile with a large, HP-style bump, from the Wingtree and Lichicx line. Silicone dampening removes the bottom-out and return noise while the bump stays pronounced. PC top, nylon bottom, POM stem, 45 gf actuation and 52 gf bottom-out on a 16 mm spring over 3.6 mm. The bump is big for a silent switch, which makes it a poor pick for anyone after a subtle tactile.
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Wingtree
A silent tactile designed by XLLAB with Lichicx: a refined bump, silicone dampening, a PC top, a PA66 bottom and a POM stem. It has 45 gf actuation and 53 gf bottom-out on a 22 mm spring over 3.8 mm, factory lubed with a mix of GPL 105 and 205. It is quiet enough for shared spaces, but the damping takes some of the sharpness off the bump compared with an undamped tactile.
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Gateron
Gateron's EF line builds the silencing into the switch rather than adding pads after the fact, which is why it stays firmer at the bottom than most silent switches manage. 50 gf on a full 4 mm of travel. Worth considering if you have tried silent switches and found them too soft: this is the version that keeps some definition, while staying quiet enough for a shared room.
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Gateron
The tactile version of the same silent housing, at 55 gf with a short 1.5 mm pre-travel, so the bump arrives early and the key registers soon after it. Tactile and silent is a harder combination than either alone, because the dampening that kills the noise also blunts the bump. This keeps enough of it to feel deliberate. Heavier than the Pink, and the right choice if you want feedback from a switch nobody else can hear.
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TTC
A factory-lubed silent tactile with a polycarbonate top, nylon bottom and POM stem. The consulted listings agree on 50g bottom-out and 3.5mm total travel. Actuation is omitted because one retailer mixes g and cN labels. Choose this exact silent V2 listing rather than assuming every Bluish White version has the same damping and mounting arrangement. Milktooth lists the V2 as a three-pin switch, in packs of ten.
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TTC
A silent linear with polycarbonate top and bottom housings, a POM stem and factory lubrication. Both consulted product descriptions list 43g bottom-out and 3.5mm travel. Actuation is left blank because the Mechanical Keyboards page mixes g and cN labels for that figure. Check the V2 version and three-pin mounting arrangement when comparing sellers. Silent describes the switch design, not a measured noise level for your assembled board.
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Wingtree
A silent linear on the Lichicx silencing design, with a silicone silencer built into the stem rather than separate dampening pads. PC top, modified PA66 bottom, 2.0 mm to actuation and 3.8 mm in total. It is sold in two spring weights, 45 gf and 53 gf bottom-out, so the force figures are left blank here: pick the weight on the product page. Designed by Black Cat Studio.
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Wingtree
A silent tactile on the classic Lichicx silent mold, designed by XLLAB, with a small bump and a silicone silencer in the stem. PC top, modified PA66 bottom, 2.0 mm to actuation and 3.8 mm in total. It is sold in 42 gf and 53 gf bottom-out, so the force fields are blank. The bump is small; anyone who wants obvious tactile feedback should look at the Taro or the Pumpkin instead.
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Wingtree
A silent linear on the Lichicx design, with a silicone silencer built into the stem and a newer top-housing mold. PC top, modified PA66 bottom, 2.0 mm to actuation and 3.8 mm in total, designed by XLLAB. It is sold in 42 gf and 53 gf bottom-out, so force is blank here. At 4.89 dollars for ten it costs more per switch than any other Wingtree switch priced in this index.
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Brands represented here: Cherry, Gateron, KTT, TTC, Wingtree.