PBT vs ABS keycaps: what the materials actually do
April 23, 2026 · Octet team
If your keyboard’s keys have started to develop greasy-looking shiny spots where your fingers rest, you have ABS keycaps. The shine is the plastic itself wearing down — your fingertips are slowly polishing the surface.
ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) is what most stock keyboards ship with. It’s cheaper to mold, takes color well, and feels slightly slick. It also wears visibly within months of daily use. The shine is permanent. Once polished, the texture is gone forever.
PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) is harder, more thermally stable, and has a slightly textured surface that is less prone to polishing. It also costs more to manufacture, takes pad-printing badly (so legends have to be dye-sublimated, double-shot molded, or laser-engraved), and shrinks more in the mold (so tolerances are tighter and tighter to hit).
Is PBT worth it?
For a daily-use keyboard, yes. The texture difference becomes obvious within a week. The longevity difference becomes obvious within six months. PBT keycaps from a decade ago still look like new. ABS keycaps from a year ago do not.
For a keyboard you use occasionally, probably not worth swapping. Stock ABS will outlast occasional use without showing wear.
What to look for in a PBT set:
- Thickness. 1.2mm minimum, 1.5mm preferred. Thin PBT is brittle. Thick PBT has the satisfying low-pitched sound profile keyboard people fuss about.
- Legend method. Dye-sublimation (legend dyed into the plastic) or double-shot (legend is a separate piece of plastic) won’t fade. Pad printing or laser etching will.
- Profile. Cherry, OEM, SA, MT3, DSA. Cherry is shorter and more sculpted than the default OEM most stock boards ship with — most enthusiasts prefer it once they try it.
- Layout coverage. ISO-CZ keycap sets are rare. Check that the dead keys (ě, š, č, ř, ž, ý, á, í, é, ú) are included if you actually type Czech.
We sell a Cherry-profile dye-sub PBT set with full ISO-CZ coverage because we got tired of buying ANSI sets and orphaning the diacritics.