Quick Answer: The best keyboard o-rings are Glorious’s O-Ring Keyboard Switch Dampeners: $9.99 for 120 on Glorious’s own store (October 31, 2026), in four versions, 40A soft or 70A hard, each Thin or Thick. If you’d rather choose by millimetres, Captain O-Ring ($11.99 for 135) labels its packs by the exact travel they remove: 0.2mm (Red) or 0.4mm (Blue). The cheapest is KBDfans’ 1.5mm rubber o-rings at $1.90 for 140, about 1.4 cents a ring against about 8 to 9 cents for the other two. O-rings only cushion the bottom-out clack, so they won’t quiet a clicky switch or a rattling stabilizer.
O-rings are the cheapest, most reversible mod you can make to a mechanical keyboard, and one of the easiest to get wrong. Too thick or too soft and every keystroke feels shorter. Too thin on a hard-bottoming board and you won’t hear a difference. We checked each pick against the seller’s own store listing rather than marketplace pages, so the prices, pack sizes and specs below are the sellers’ own.
How o-rings change your keyboard
- They only cushion the bottom-out. An o-ring sits on the keycap stem and compresses when the keycap bottoms out on the switch housing. That impact is the loudest part of most keystrokes. The o-ring does nothing to a clicky switch’s click leaf or to the upstroke.
- Hardness and thickness are separate dials. Hardness (Glorious’s 40A vs 70A) sets how much the ring squashes and how soft the landing feels. Thickness sets how much travel you lose. Captain O-Ring skips the durometer number and labels the travel loss directly: 0.2mm or 0.4mm.
- It’s fully reversible. Nothing is soldered or opened. Pull the keycaps, remove the rings and the board is back to stock, which makes o-rings a cheap way to test whether you want a quieter board before spending on foam, lube or silent switches.
Best keyboard o-rings at a glance
| O-rings | Best for | Pack | Options | Material | Price (seller store, Oct 31) | Per ring |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glorious O-Ring Switch Dampeners | Best overall | 120 | 40A or 70A, Thin or Thick | Translucent silicone | $9.99 | 8.3 cents |
| Captain O-Ring Switch Dampeners | Best labeled by travel loss | 135 + screen cloth | 0.2mm (Red) or 0.4mm (Blue) | EPDM rubber | $11.99 | 8.9 cents |
| KBDfans MX Rubber O-Rings | Cheapest per ring | 140 | 8 x 5 x 1.5 mm, 4 colors | Rubber | $1.90 | 1.4 cents |
By the numbers: all three packs cover a full-size 104-key board in one go. Glorious’s o-ring page averaged 4.7 stars from 90 reviews (75 five-star, 4 one-star) on October 31, 2026. All four Glorious versions cost the same $9.99, so choosing hardness and thickness doesn’t change the price. KBDfans’ 140-pack costs $8.09 less than Glorious’s 120-pack, which works out to roughly a sixth of the price per ring.
1. Glorious O-Ring Switch Dampeners: Best Overall
Glorious O-Ring Keyboard Switch Dampeners
- Four versions at the same $9.99: 40A Thin, 40A Thick, 70A Thin and 70A Thick. All four were in stock on Glorious's store on October 31, 2026.
- Glorious's own descriptions: 40A Thin gives "slightly shorter travel with high sound and impact absorption." 40A Thick gives "much shorter travel" with "maximum" absorption. The 70A versions give "medium" absorption.
- Translucent silicone, so RGB still shines through, and Glorious says they fit "most MX-style keycaps."
Glorious is the pick because it’s the only one of the three that lets you choose hardness and thickness separately, at one price. Start with 40A Thin if you just want to take the edge off the clack without losing travel. One correction to earlier versions of this guide: Glorious’s product page doesn’t publish millimetre thicknesses for Thin and Thick, so we’ve removed the 1.5mm and 2.5mm figures we used to quote. Its review summary also says that while some buyers praise the noise reduction, “others find the keys inconsistent.” If one key feels different from its neighbours after fitting, check that its ring sits flat on the stem. For boards worth modding, see our best mechanical keyboard pillar.
2. Captain O-Ring: Best Labeled by Exact Travel Reduction
Captain O-Ring Mechanical Keyboard Switch Dampeners
- Color-coded by how much travel each ring removes: Red takes 0.2mm off for "subtle dampening," and Blue takes 0.4mm off for "maximum shock absorption." Both are $11.99 on captainoring.com.
- Molded from EPDM rubber, which Captain O-Ring says resists tearing, cracking and hardening better than standard black buna (nitrile) rings.
- 135 rings plus a microfiber screen cloth. Captain O-Ring is an industrial o-ring supplier in Gloucester City, New Jersey, and its store footer lists ISO 9001:2015 certification. It says the kits are "assembled in the USA."
If durometer numbers mean nothing to you, Captain O-Ring’s millimetre labels remove the guesswork: 0.2mm is the mild change, 0.4mm the aggressive one. It costs $2 more than Glorious for 15 more rings, so the per-ring price is close. Its EPDM material also makes it the pick for a board you’ll keep for years. Pair the Blue 0.4mm pack with tall, hard-bottoming boards like the ones in our best hall effect keyboard guide only if you don’t rely on full key travel.
3. KBDfans MX Rubber O-Rings: Cheapest per Ring
KBDfans MX Switch Rubber Silencing O-Rings
- $1.90 for 140 rings on KBDfans' store, in black, red, blue or transparent. All four colors were in stock on October 31, 2026.
- 8 x 5 x 1.5 mm, which KBDfans calls the size most o-rings are. It says they "won't do much to affect travel distance, but they will reduce noise."
- Industrial-grade rubber, for Cherry MX and MX-clone switches. There's only one thickness and no hardness options.
KBDfans is the budget answer. At about 1.4 cents a ring, a 104-key board costs less than $2 in rings. The catch is shipping: $1.90 doesn’t include it, so this pack makes most sense added to a larger KBDfans order of switches, keycaps or a case. Transparent is the safe choice on an RGB board. For boards you’d pair it with, see our best budget mechanical keyboard guide.
Not every “o-ring” is a switch dampener
Search a keyboard store for “o-ring” and you’ll also find case parts. CannonKeys sells “Bakeneko O-Rings” ($5 to $5.50, 30A, 50A or 70A) and “Cloudline Extra O-Ring Gaskets” ($9). These are large silicone rings for an “O-ring mount”, where the ring wraps the plate or PCB to cushion it inside the case. They fit only the keyboards they’re made for and do nothing for switch bottom-out. If you want that softer, bouncier mount feel instead of quieter keypresses, read our gasket mount keyboard guide.
Why three marketplace packs are no longer on this list
Earlier versions of this guide also ranked Sumind, ThreeBulls and QZONELIFE o-ring packs. We’ve dropped them. None has its own store or a published spec sheet we could check, so we couldn’t confirm pack size, material, thickness or price from the seller. The three picks above are all sold direct with specs on the seller’s own listing.
How to choose keyboard o-rings
- Start thin if you’re unsure. Glorious 40A Thin, Captain O-Ring Red (0.2mm) or KBDfans 1.5mm all take the edge off the clack with the smallest change in feel.
- Go thick only if you want a muffled board. Glorious Thick or Captain O-Ring Blue (0.4mm) mute more but shorten every keystroke.
- Count your keys. One ring per key: about 104 for full size, 87 for TKL, 81 to 84 for 75%. Every pack here covers a full-size board.
- Own a keycap puller first. None of these three packs includes one. See our best keycap puller guide.
- Match the fix to the noise. O-rings quiet the bottom-out thump, not a clicky switch’s click or a rattling spacebar. Those need stabilizer tuning or different switches.
The bottom line
Glorious’s O-Ring Switch Dampeners ($9.99 for 120) are the best keyboard o-rings for most people. Four hardness and thickness versions cost the same, so you can pick the exact change you want. Captain O-Ring ($11.99 for 135) is the pick if you’d rather choose by millimetres of travel lost, and its EPDM rubber is built to last. KBDfans’ 1.5mm rings ($1.90 for 140) are by far the cheapest per ring, if you’re already ordering from KBDfans. For a genuinely silent build rather than a quieter one, our best quiet mechanical keyboard guide covers boards built that way from the factory.
Last updated: October 31, 2026. Prices, pack sizes, materials and stock re-checked against Glorious’s store listing and product data, Captain O-Ring’s product data on captainoring.com, KBDfans’ product data and CannonKeys’ product data. Changes: the vague “about $9-15” and “$10-15” ranges were replaced with the sellers’ own prices ($9.99 and $11.99); the 1.5mm/2.5mm Glorious thickness claim was removed because Glorious doesn’t publish it; KBDfans was added; three marketplace-only packs we couldn’t verify were removed; and new FAQs cover pack size per board and O-ring-mount gaskets.