Akko Cilantro Switch Review

To say that I’ve had quite a long last couple of weeks would be putting it extremely lightly. As many of you saw (and kindly replied to) on my various social media posts last week, there’s been an ongoing series of situations with a neighbor of mine that has resulted in just about all of the things that you would never want to have to deal with for someone that shares a wall with you. You know, just the run of the mill police reports, late night 911 calls, lawyers, protection orders, and seemingly everything in between there. Just your average spring cleaning type of shenanigans, really. While I’d love to be able to say that that situation is completely resolved now and that both them and I can move on from it, those of you who do have the unfortunate ability to sympathize with me about this situation will know that this will continue to evolve and develop over the course of the next handful of months. In spite of this fact, I am trying my best to get back on schedule here with the switch content and cranking out reviews, measurements, and all of the content you’ve come to expect of me on more or less a normal schedule. I’m not pushing this hard to come back from all of that very stressful set of weeks just because of these expectations, either, rather I’ve come to realize just how important this weekly cycle of prepping for and executing content has become as part of my routine. In addition to all of the things that prompted the emergency police calls and lawyer involvement, not being able to sit and actually write due to stress for one of the only times I’ve ever had in the past five years of working on this website was quite jarring. I really can’t recall the last time I was under that degree of stress and uncertainty before. But, I can say that it has certainly made me more appreciative of the switch review, the switches, and you all supporting me week in and out. So thank you all for giving me an extra week to pull myself back together for this review.

Figure 1: Although I will admit that the non-zero chance this website gets discovered and/or read into court proceedings in the coming months is a bit amusing to me.

Switch Background

I’ll be honest and say that I’ve always been a tiny bit skeptical of Akko as a keyboard switch selling brand for many years now. While that may come as a bit of a surprise to you all given just how positively I spoke of the Akko Mirror switches in my full length review of them from a few months ago, it’s something that I’ve not really brought up before because I struggle to put my finger on why it is that I exactly feel that way about them. Perhaps it’s their weird, almost borderline pandering to beginners style of marketing that they seem to do for their switches? It’s not as nearly as insane as some other super gamer-focused brands out there, but they’re certainly not shy to pull back on details in marketing and fill out pages with buzzwords instead. Maybe it’s just the fact that Akko feels much more isolated from the community and doesn’t project the same sort of personality and friendliness as some larger, more custom keyboard focused companies like Cannonkeys or Novelkeys? It could just entirely be that I don’t like how often they change manufacturers. Well, wherever within me that general distaste for Akko and/or their marketing team was lodged was well and truly struck by the marketing of the Akko Cilantro switches when I first came across them. First pitched by Akko in March of 2025 as their new “deep clack” tactile switches, I was immediately pained by the oxymoronic coupling of those terms and as a result pushed off of these switches almost entirely. Even if they were new tactiles and a continuation of a pretty solid performing series of releases by Akko throughout 2025, surely I could find something more interesting and less gimmicky elsewhere. However, I encountered reviews and videos from a few different switch reviewers over the past month or so since the release of the Akko Cilantro switches that had changed my perspective and immediate interest in these switches quite substantially. Rather than pitching these to their audiences as the latest onomatopoeic tactiles from Akko, they instead chose to focus on these being HMX’s first tactile switches – something which might not entirely be true. Also depending where you land on the whole HMX vs. KTT “thing”, the Cilantros may not even be HMX-made at all either. Suddenly a switch I had sworn off reviewing almost altogether had a whole lot of “uhm actually” corrections I needed to get straight in the only way I knew how...

Of all of the “that might not be true” statements that could be made about the Akko Cilantro switches that I felt the urge to address, the first and easiest to actually go over is that these are probably maybe kind of sort of not HMX’s first tactile switches…? The honor of the first tactile switches made by HMX goes to that of the SP Star Polestar Orange switches which were released all the way back in the middle of 2024. However, HMX won’t tell you that that is a true statement. (In fact they’ll pretend they never made them at all.) No, don’t think for a second that SP Star will own up to it either. (They will definitely insist that they made these themselves despite looking absolutely nothing like any of their other historical switch releases.) Instead, this revelation has come about by inspection of these switches at a part by part level and direct comparison to that of other HMX made switches by longtime friend of the website and sponsor SwitchOddities. At nearly all points the SP Star Polestar Oranges feel, act, and look like they are made by HMX, even down to the smallest details such as having identical ‘L’ and ‘inverted L’ mold markings on their bottom housings and the angles of the dustproof stems that have only ever been seen on switches made by HMX. And all of these details were uncovered by SwitchOddities when they purchased these switches almost a full calendar year ago. However, without any public acknowledgement from either HMX or SP Star about these switches, not that SP Star has been historically fond of marketing or overly pushing their switches out there anyways, I can understand how this misconception slipped out there to the community that is a bit less in the switch weeds.

Figure 2: Top side comparison of an HMX-made switch (Left), SP Star Polestar Orange (Middle), and old Dustproof SP Star Orange (Right) switches.

Figure 3: Bottom side comparison of the same HMX-made switch (Left), SP Star Polestar Orange (Middle), and old Dustproof SP Star Orange (Right) switches.

My sleeper cell mission of being overly pedantic and informative about keyboard switches was also activated in watching these reviews when the various content creators kept combining the words “Akko”, “HMX”, and “Tactile” together in various parts of those videos. Whereas I first took issue with the Cilantros being labeled as the “first” tactiles from HMX, the combinations of those previous three words actually conjoin to form the intersections of tow other interesting bits of modern mechanical keyboard switch history which I’ve recently detailed – Akko’s long and complex switch release history and that of the tenuous connection between KTT and HMX as manufacturers. In the event that you missed either one of the Akko Mirror or Raptor MX Extreme switch reviews, the two roads that cross at this intersection can briefly be summarized as such:

- Akko has had a very long and complex history of switch releases over in the past, intermingling releases of switches from seven different manufacturers in less than five years’ time. Chief among these releases that really helped push Akko into more mainstream appeal was that of KTT, who was responsible for producing the insanely popular original Akko CS Trio of Rose Red, Matcha Green, and Ocean Blue switches. Recent times though have seen Akko pivoting to Kailh and newly popularized HMX to produce their latest and greatest of releases, seemingly dropping KTT by the wayside on the way through…

- HMX, as a relatively newly popularized switch manufacturer, has potential ties to KTT that ranges from as extreme as HMX being a direct sub-brand of switches of produced on KTT owned machines (e.g. the relation between EverFree and Gateron) to them being entities that split off from one another at some point in time. Similarities in how switches perform, how switches look, and even unique designs and mold markings all seem to be somehow shared and not shared between KTT and HMX switches over time and it’s led to enough confusion that even KTT as a factory has had to put out publications stating what separates them from other “competitors”.

While this first tale is still obviously unfolding and developing as Akko has continued to release quite a few switches since the publishing of the Akko Mirror Switch Review, the second tale is equally as unfinished but for the complete opposite reason. There has still been to date no information that cleanly defines the relationship between HMX and KTT. So, in my head I thought maybe the Akko Cilantro switches would be secret answer to all of this. Being the first HMX made tactile switches (that they will own up to producing), perhaps these will be so unique from KTT that we can definitively say these were in no way connected to KTT at all. Or, on the flip side, if people have been wrong about these being HMX’s first tactile switches, maybe they actually look more like classic KTT switches than anything from HMX recently? KTT didn’t even make that many tactile switches relatively speaking so it should be pretty easy to tell if these look like old KTT-made switches or if they were uniquely designed from the ground up by HMX. Well, about that…

Figure 4: This style of super shortened slider rails is something that has only ever been seen from two manufacturers of switches - KTT and HMX...

Okay, so they look the same. Maybe they at least have different force curves than most other KTT tactile switches?

Figure 5: Yeah, there's not really any hope of beating the allegations on this one.

Despite hoping for the best and finding a clear dividing line here, the Akko Cilantro switches look just a tiny bit different from old KTT tactile switches and yet have so many overlapping features with KTT that they clearly were not uniquely and originally designed by HMX. I can’t even feel super confident in saying that these are in fact made by HMX given these similarities, and am just relying on Akko in being truthful about such despite my instincts. While I really wish that this review and all of the following sections will double back on the points of concern raised in the images above and that I would be able to twist apart how these are definitely HMX made and not KTT made, I can’t say that it will. The Akko Cilantro switches appear to only further muddy the waters and lead me to asking more questions than I had initially when trying to ponder why people would think “deep” and “clack” go together. This intrigue actually led me to stretch well beyond my normal reach in preparation for reviews like these and to contact sales representatives of Akko to ask about these switches and try to secure prototypes of them. After all, prototypes may or may not have more details to them that could help point to them as being fully of HMX origin and not potentially related to KTT. If these prototypes were somehow made by KTT and not HMX then Akko’s close manufacturing relationship with them and some of their old design choices would likely continue to shine through in the colors, molds, or designs of the Cilantro prototypes. While I was able to actually get hands on a couple of prototypes of these switches, as you can see below the they hardly did anything to help clear up the confusion that exists surrounding these switches as they look just like the release Akko switches at the mold level and are colored like other HMX switches instead of old KTT ones. The sales representatives couldn’t and wouldn’t say anything more on the topic either when probed directly. If anything, all I did actually manage to do during my research for the background of these switches is learn that Akko is actually a lot more friendly and like those medium-large sized custom companies than I had initially anticipated. Apparently one of them and I even share some real world background as well and it made me feel a bit weird that they and I could have crossed paths at one point in time and never known the wiser. The Akko Cilantro switches, though, really only serve to historically tie another knot in the confusing web of HMX’s and Akko’s respective histories.

Figure 6: Akko Cilantro release switch (Left) next to it’s dark stem (Middle) and light stem (Right) prototypes.

Teased quite a few times over the month leading up to their commercial release, the Akko Cilantro switches were first debuted on Akko’s various social media platforms at the very start of March 2025. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Akko went on to share all sorts of teasers about the Cilantro switches, including images of prototype color schemes being decided on by their designers, brand new packaging and boxes that the Akko Cilantros would come in, and even pricing and force curve information for these switches. Finally released to the public on March 31st of 2025, the HMX-made Akko Cilantro tactiles were released for sale in boxes of 45 switches priced at $12.99 per box, or about $0.29 per switch. Like all other aftermarket Akko switches released throughout their tenure, these 45 count boxes came with decorative and informative designs, reusable packaging, and a whole lot of flair that well outpaces their very budget friendly pricing. While no explicit plans have been stated by Akko as to the longevity of these switches, their general tendency over the years to continue restocking and supporting switch releases for quite a long time will likely see these continue to be available for at least a couple of years into the future.

Figure 7: The literal chat screenshot of a photo that Akko's team shared in their Discord to show off prototype color choices. No, I’m not kidding you – this is what they shared.

Figure 8: Marketing specs and force curves for the Akko Cilantro switches teased in mid-March, 2025.

Cilantro Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Akko Cilantro switches come in a three tone colorway that is reminiscent of practically all other green things except their namesake herb. In fat, I’d go as far as to say that the pale yellow stems, light pale green top housings, and very warm, soft green bottom housings more so remind me of fancy soaps than they do cilantro, though this could obviously be mental association between the two. As I already bewilderingly laid out in the background section of this review, these switches basically look as if they are made by KTT from top to bottom despite having been said to have came from HMX and exhibiting the same fresh Akko branding used on their HMX switches as documented previously in my Akko Mirror Switch Review. Despite this strong overlap in design similarities, though, there are still some details with respect to the stems that are worth belaboring here in the event that we some day know where the line is between HMX and KTT and come back to see if the truth was under our noses all along. Discussions of these details, as well as many other sub-part details worth noting about the Akko Cilantro switches may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 9: Akko Cilantro switches and their components.

Looking first to the light pale green top housings of the Akko Cilantro switches, we’re greeted with a design that is effectively identical to that of the Akko Mirror switches made by HMX that came before them. Most striking on the outside of the housings is that of the upright ‘Akko’ nameplate embossed with bold, non-fanciful lettering that has been seen on Akko switches starting in 2025. Also like the other HMX made switches, the Cilantro top housings feature their mold markings on the exterior, located on the outer lip just outside of the long, thin, and rectangular LED slot. These mold markings consist of a single letter in the far left-hand corner and a combination of numbers and letters on the right-hand side. In the center of the long LED/diode strip is also a centered circular cutout to support through switch LEDs. Internally, the housings are fairly barren, featuring really only mold ejector circles around the outside worth noting. All other internal features such as the shape of the guiders for the slider rails and the front and back plate sliding rails all look identical to switches otherwise noted here before. As a side note, I was not able to find official documentation from Akko which suggests what the housings are actually made out of, however Unikeys purports these switches as having top housings made of polycarbonate.

Figure 10: Akko Cilantro top housing exterior showing new, non-stylized 'Akko' nameplate and mold markings on outer edge of the rectangular LED/diode slot.

Figure 11: Akko Cilantro top housing interior showing no specific differences in structure nor design details than seen previously in other HMX switches.

Moving next to the pale yellow, assumedly POM stems of the Akko Cilantro switches, we’re greeted with a design that truly looks like it was ripped right out of KTT’s design playbook. Aside from the tactile bump, the most striking feature of these stems is that of their ‘high-waisted’ slider rails which look almost ridiculously short compared to the slightly longer than average stem length of the Cilantros at 13.50 mm. These stems, like those of many KTT made switches have slider rails that come in way shorter than the overall running average for measurements, having a length of only 4.28 mm compared to the greater than 700 switch running average of 5.04 mm. While this may lead many people to think that these are made by KTT, given that KTT’s historical running average for this measurement is 4.50 mm, it is also worth noting in passing that HMX’s historical average for this measurement is also 4.48 mm, further strengthening the connection between these two companies and confusion about where these switches were made. Beyond the slider rail heights, the stems are otherwise fairly plain, featuring non-tapered slider rails, a tiered center pole, and mold ejector circles that are small and on the front plates directly above the tactile bump stem legs. It is also worth mentioning that there is a moderate amount of factory lubing that is present evenly on all sides of the stems of the stock switches.

Figure 12: Front and back sides of the Akko Cilantro stems showing their non-tapered slider rails, tiered center poles, and extremely short slider rail lengths indicative of being made by HMX or KTT.

Figure 13: Side profile of the Akko Cilantro stems showing off their tactile bump.

Finally arriving at the Irish Spring soap colored bottom housings of the Akko Cilantro switches, we’re again greeted with a slew of features identical to those seen in the Akko Mirror switches from before. Internally these features include a medium sized south side spring collar, dampening pads at the base of each slider rail, and tiny amounts of factory lubing that can be seen on the slide rails and on the interface between the stem legs and the leaves. Externally, these features include PCB mounting pins, inverted numerical mold markings located between the metal PCB pins, and also the same ‘L’ and ‘inverted L’ markings just below the PCB mounting pins that was noted in the SP Star Polestar Orange switches above. Through and through these are very clearly housings that were designed by HMX and feature no frills or special design quirks that help separate them performance wise from others before them. (This is of course assuming without proof that there is no difference in the angle of the leaves present in these switches versus that of other HMX-made bottom housings.) The only further detail worth noting here is that of the questionably true claim by Unikeys that the bottom housings of these switches are made of nylon, something which is again uncorroborated by any Akko source that I could find.

Figure 14: Akko Cilantro bottom housing interior showing medium sized south side spring collar, dampening pads at the base of the slider rails, and trace amounts of factory lubing.

Figure 15: Akko Cilantro bottom housing exterior showing PCB mounting pins, an inverted numerical mold marking between the metal PCB pins, and 'L' and 'Inverted L' markings underneath the mounting pins indicative of HMX being their manufacturer.

Push Feel

I have no idea what a “deep clack” tactile switch feels like. I swear I’m not being obstinate on this one, I just genuinely do not understand how that pairing of words properly or fully characterizes what is actually going on in the Akko Cilantro switches. The first thing that stands out to me about the push feeling of these switches is that they travel right back to the “fast tactile” days of pre-COVID and punch with a tactile bump that is right out of the gate. Immediately at the start of the downstroke you’re launched into a no hesitation, no linearity tactility bump that kicks off a downhill, fast paced chain reaction right from the jump. The tactile bump itself is deceptively stronger than what the force curve for the Cilantros would suggest, with a medium-strong kick that you can pretty quickly blow right past and end up at the pointed, round, and very punchy bottom outs of the Cilantros. While you can definitely land in between the starting tactile bump peak and bottom out of these switches by typing more deliberately or gently, normal typing speeds often found me bottoming out seemingly instantly after passing through the tactile bumps of the Akko Cilantros and not giving me any time to appreciate the short post-bump linear region of these switches. If you were to instead opt for the other direction and try typing even faster than normal pace on the Akko Cilantros, the bottom outs become quite a bit more aggressive and take on a snappiness of sorts that is not always consistent in delivery but something that I imagine people who like sharp tactiles and/or stem pole bottom out switches would really appreciate. The tactile bump strength and size, however, does not appear to change much at all through changes in typing speeds.

Figure 16: Force curve diagram for the stock Akko Cilantro switch.

As for the less obvious features present in the feeling of the Akko Cilantros, there’s quite a few of them that definitely make the switch more nuanced than just a tactile to bottom out pipeline. The topping outs, for one, are not even remotely balanced with the bottom outs in terms of strength or tone, though they instead seem to suit better as ‘accents’ of sort. The topping outs feature all the same pointed, round, and punchy notes of the bottom outs of these switches though just to a significantly less degree and with much less force under faster typing speeds. In fact as typing speeds pick up, the difference between topping and bottom outs grows quite a bit. When it comes to smoothness, these switches are fairly smooth and have no scratch to them, though with the trade off of a bit of gumminess at some points that makes them feel more like they’re hand lubed than not at all. These extra thick parts of the strokes are especially present around the bottom outs of the Cilantros at higher typing speeds and is, in my belief, what contributes to the noted inconsistencies in the snappy parts of the bottom out noted in the previous paragraph. A final, extremely subtle thing to note in the feeling of the Akko Cilantro switches is also that their perceived total stem travel distance is way longer than that of the measured 3.540 mm in the force curve above. Strangely the opposite of my general experience with stronger tactile switches that ‘snap’ right to their bottom out, the Akko Cilantros could have easily fooled me as having full length stem travel distances around 4.00 mm prior to me having actually measured them for myself.

Sound

While most people would likely assume that a medium-strong tactile with non-sharp bottom outs would have a sound profile that is more or less an even mixture of those two features, in the case of the Akko Cilantros they would be quite wrong. The sound of these switches is almost entirely driven by their bottom outs, with the tactile bump and topping outs playing an extremely distant second chair to the end of their strokes. Analogously, these may as well be second chair in the rehearsal band one room over practicing the same melody and tones as the full-fledged orchestra playing at the same time. As a result of being almost entirely driven by their bottom outs, the Akko Cilantros are loud, in your face, and quite a bit more sharp on the ears than they are on the fingers. The general tones of the bottom outs are high pitched and sharp though with some degree of depth and a general roundness to their tone that develops and grows quite a bit under faster typing speeds. In fact, I suspect that this change in tone and an increase in bass presence is what really helps sell these switches as being ‘snappier’ at those faster typing speeds. Beyond this overwhelming sound of the bottom outs, though, there’s really not much else to the Akko Cilantro’s sound for better or for worse. Perhaps the only thing I did notice when typing more deliberately and intentionally not trying to bottom out was that of a slight scratch sound that would appear audibly as a subtle sort of shuffling. Present more towards the upper end of the downstroke than anywhere else in these switches, I imagine that this has to do with factory lubing distributions as its towards the opposite end of the switch than where I had noted the gumminess in the push feeling section above.

Wobble

Much like I had noted in the Akko Mirror switch review, these HMX made Akko switches have surprisingly little to almost no stem wobble whatsoever. There’s very minor amounts that are equal in magnitude in both N/S and E/W directions, though it’s so small that I imagine there’s virtually no reasonable keyboard enthusiast that would take issue with such.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

Figure 18: Numerical details regarding the stock Akko Cilantro switches.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1000 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- After 17,000 actuations, there appears to be a pretty significant factory lube migration in my batch of Akko Cilantro switches that led to quite a change in the consistency of their strokes from press to press. While somewhat noticeable in an increased presence of the aforementioned subtle shuffling scratch tone towards the topping out, it is much more noticeable in the bottom outs which have more gummy strikes than their stock counterparts.

34,000 Actuations

- After 34,000 actuations, this increased inconsistency from stroke to stroke only gets more apparent in the Akko Cilantro switches. The bottom outs especially suffer here with seemingly all switches increasing in their inconsistency at this point though inconsistently so. If the Akko Cilantro switches arrived in this fashion in their stock form, I’d almost have to advocate for cherry picking of a matching lot for any board that they would go into.

51,000 Actuations

- Thankfully, beyond 34,000 actuations the Akko Cilantros seemed to have stopped their changes in consistency from factory lube migration. The 51,000 actuation switches were not able to be picked apart from the 34,000 actuation ones blindly.

- Surprisingly, these switches did not seem to noticeably change in stem wobble at any point during this break in testing. While the HMX-made Akko Mirror switches only somewhat increased their stem wobble at 51,000 actuations, the Cilantros seem almost impervious to this after having broken in this far as I’m not sure I’ve ever reviewed a switch that has not increased in stem wobble at all during break in testing.

Figure 20: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Akko Cilantro switches throughout the break in process.

Other

As mentioned in the background section of this review, Akko really went the extra mile when it came to the packaging of the Akko Cilantro switches and they’ve somehow elevated their packaging game even further beyond where they were before. Whereas the original boxes of Akko switches were simply full cardboard shells that housed plastic upper and lower trays for switches, this most recent release has debuted hard shell white boxes with ‘Akko’ logos that are now covered in a thin decorative box and contain similar plastic switch holding trays. The durability, reusability, and general size of these boxes is honestly astounding to me given the price point of these switches and continues to be one of the most stellar parts about Akko’s entirely switch selling endeavor, switches aside.

Figure 21: Akko Cilantro switch front side box art.

Figure 22: Akko Cilantro switch back side box art.

Figure 23: Akko Cilantro switch internal white box with plain 'Akko' branding.

Figure 24: Akko Cilantro switch box internals showing plastic upper and lower tray which holds the 45 switches.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Tactile Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Akko Cilantro switches side by side.

Figure 25: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Gateorn x Sillyworks Type R, Cherry MX Purple, Drop Holy Panda X, EverFree Grayish Tactile, Zaku II, and Akko Lavender Purple Pro V3)

Sillyworks x Gateron Type R

- Despite the comparative force curve for these two switches below suggesting that they would feel as if they had similar tactile strength, the Sillyworks x Gateron Type R switches punch with a much stronger and snappier one-two punch of tactile bump into bottom out than that of the Akko Cilantro switches.

- The Akko Cilantro switches have significantly less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Gateron Type R switches.

- With respect to their sound profiles, the Akko Cilantros are more well rounded and have deeper, more complex tones than that of the Sillyworks x Gateron Type Rs. By comparison, the Type R switches are sharper, more pointed, and sound more one dimensional – something which also is more consistent throughout typing speed changes than the sound of the Cilantros.

Cherry MX Purple

- As a function of the tactile bumps of the Akko Cilantros starting right at the onset of the downstroke and having no middling linear pretravel leading up to them, they have a bump that feels much more snappy, strong, and in your face than that of the Cherry MX Purple switches.

- The Cherry MX Purple switches are overall much more quiet than the Akko Cilantro switches, even keeping in mind the scratch that is incredibly present in their profile that isn’t their in the Cilantros. The difference is due to the combination of the MX Purples both not having stem pole bottom outs and also doing such onto thicker nylon Cherry bottom housings.

- As most people who will have tried stock Cherry tactiles could imagine, the factory lubing of the Akko Cilantro switches makes them quite a fair bit smoother than the Cherry MX Purples.

Drop Holy Panda X

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, surprisingly these two are the most comparable to one another in terms of their stock stem wobbles. The Holy Panda X switches, on average, are nearly dead even with the Akko Cilantros though in practice they are seemingly a bit less consistent on this metric.

- While both of these switches have out of the gate tactile bumps, something about the construction of the HPX switches causes them to have tactile bumps that feel wider or as if there’s a larger area of contact between the stem legs and leaves of these switches than that of the Akko Cilantro switches. Honestly, it’s a really strange phenomenon to try and accurately pin a reason to.

- The Drop Holy Panda X switches are a tiny bit louder than that of the Akko Cilantro switches with both a tactile bump and bottoming out that just sounds snappier, more pointed, and more inside of your head than the Cilantro switches.

EverFree Grayish Tactile

- Despite these switches having nearly identical force curves to one another, the Akko Cilantro switches do feel just a tiny bit more snappy at the point of their tactile bump than that of the EverFree Grayish Tactiles. On the other end of the stroke, though, the Grayish Tactile’s bottom outs feel larger and as if they have a bigger area of contact than that of the Cilantro’s bottom outs.

- There is quite a bit less stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions of the Akko Cilantro switches than there is in the EverFree Grayish Tactile switches.

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, these are the most comparable to one another in terms of their average stock sound. Unlike the Cilantros, though, the EverFree Grayish tactiles do historically struggle with long term and batch to batch consistency. (This is not entirely unexpected when you consider that the EverFree line is Gateron’s budget switch series.)

Zaku II

- Both at their tactile bumps and at the point of bottom out, the Zaku II switches are more aggressive and pointed than the Akko Cilantro switches. Something about the upstroke return of the stems of the Zaku IIs is also much more forceful and abrupt than that of the Akko Cilantros, giving them a much sharper overall feeling from start to finish.

- In terms of stem wobble, the Zaku II switches have quite a bit more N/S and E/W play than that of the Akko Cilantro switches.

- The Zaku II switches are far and away the louder of these two options, with all of their features from their tactile bumps, to their bottom outs, and even their scratch being entirely more audible than that of the Akko Cilantros at any point.

Akko Lavender Purple Pro V3

- Even though the Akko Lavender Purple V3 Pro switches have a tactile bump with lesser peak force than that of the Akko Cilantros, they still feel as if they have an overall wider and more prominent tactile bump. That being said, though, the Cilantros are still very much stronger and more pointed than that of Lavender Purple V3 Pros.

- The Akko Cilantro switches have a tiny bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than that of the Akko Lavender Purple V3 Pro switches.

- While these two switches are comparable in terms of their overall volumes, the Lavender Purple V3 Pros have a sound profile that is much more bass-focused and has deeper, richer tones than that of the Akko Cilantro switches.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.