Keyless entry versus traditional locks
A fair comparison, including the cases where mechanical keys are still the right answer.
Keyless entry is usually presented as straightforwardly better. It often is, but not always, and the cases where it is not are worth knowing before you spend anything.
Where keyless clearly wins
- Anywhere people change. Staff turnover, tenants moving, contractors needing temporary access. Revoking a credential takes seconds; rekeying takes a locksmith.
- Anywhere you need a record. Mechanical keys leave no trace. If you ever need to establish who entered and when, keys cannot help you.
- Multiple doors with different permissions. One credential can open three doors and not the fourth. Doing that with keys means a keyring and a chart.
- Scheduled access. Doors that unlock at opening and lock at closing, without anyone remembering.
- Multiple sites. Managing five buildings from one interface versus five sets of keys.
Where traditional locks still make sense
This part usually goes unsaid by people selling electronics:
- A single door with two or three long-term holders and no turnover. The problem being solved does not exist.
- Doors with no power and no practical cable path, where the cost of getting power there exceeds the benefit.
- Interior doors where the requirement is privacy rather than security or audit.
- Sites where nobody will administer the system. An access control platform with no owner degrades into a system nobody can change.
The middle ground
Most buildings end up with both, and that is the correct outcome. Electronic control on the doors that face the public or separate areas of different sensitivity; mechanical keys on interior doors, closets, and anything where the audit trail has no value.
Deciding door by door produces a better result than a blanket policy in either direction. The question for each door is simple: does anyone need to know who opened this, and does the set of people allowed through it change? Two yeses means electronic. Two noes means a good lock.
One thing to check either way
Whichever you choose, egress rules still apply. A door on a fire escape route must open from the inside without a key, a code, or a credential — always. Any arrangement that requires something to get out is a life-safety failure regardless of how modern it is.