In a previous startup, I worked in an "open office" room with 4 other developers. Two of us used cherry MX brown key switches, and no-one seemed to mind. Blues

In a previous startup, I worked in an "open office" room with 4 other developers. Two of us used cherry MX brown key switches, and no-one seemed to mind. Blues are a different story. Personally, I can't even stand hearing myself type with blues, let alone someone else. If someone had the balls to bring one of those into an open office I would probably need noise cancelling headphones to work in the same space. As others have mentioned, the noise from brown mechanical switches is from the plastic bottoming out and not the switches themselves. Therefore, some keyboards are de-facto louder than others. My Das, for instance, is definitely more audible than my backlit gaming Max keyboard. Both use the same brown key switches, but the plastic & keyboard construction is different resulting in a more muted typing experience with the latter.