We recently had a self-confessed mechanical keyboard obsessive introduce us to the world of custom keysets, fancy switches and soldering your own board. The best keyboards around don't stop at our list of best gaming keyboards. In fact, if you're serious about the hobby, that's just where it starts. You can spend hundreds of dollars on a great keyboard, but if you want it to be perfect and just for you, or if you want multiple keyboards for multiple purposes, you can end up spending a lot of money. But you can also end up with a one-of-a-kind keyboard that you love.
We fed our own custom keyboard lust by putting together a gallery of some of the best boards we've seen online. Some of them are so good they might inspire you to start customizing, too.
We'll start off with a custom board from a designer featured in the aforementioned keyboard article, MiTo. As you can probably tell, this one is designed with Counter Strike: Global Offensive in mind, and there are multiple color schemes to be found on the keyboard's MassDrop page.
While we're on the subject of MiTo, here's another one of his custom keysets, entitled Canvas. An XDA profile keycap set for MX stem mechanical keyboards. Inspired by the design of 90s Apple keyboards.
The first really out there keyboard on the list is this vertical beauty which was designed because
The next keyboard is from
This keyboard from Reddit Grokodaemon entitled Ono-Sendai Matrix 83 has a custom layout and a mixture of various switches. The numpad is switched over to the left, and it has Overcast DSA keycaps.
This set of beauties is called the Carbon collection, and is being shown off here by
This piece from
Reddit Rosmajoor's keyboard is simple, yet beautiful. Most of the keys are completely blank on top, with the lettering on the sides, while the escape and WASD keys are strikingly orange.
This stylish looking
This next keyboard has custom keycaps for flight controls, and it's also mounted on a nice looking black and white board. It's another one from
Mechanical keyboards can be very expensive, but they don't often look as expensive as this one which combines a number of parts from Massdrop like the
This is a rather interesting keyboard from Reddit Noobas4urus. It doesn't have a numpad, but some of the keys on the main board have been replaced to make way for 1-3. Add in the bright colors and the nice mahogany spacebar, and you've got an exciting looking keyboard.
This keyboard is from
Another popular choice from the GeekHack forum, this all black keyboard is from Ghostjuggernaut, and is named Deathkish. You'll probably have to be able to type without looking at the keyboard to make the most out of this one.
