compared to trying to find the same products on Amazon or AliExpress. Many of the products are available, but every product on those examples can be filtered against comparable products by the specs that matter to the engineers doing the selection. On other sites, the metadata is generated inconsistently by individual sellers.
It's very interesting to me that, as an absolute amateur at electronics, I find the Amazon/AliExpress approach infinitely more usable, even though Digi-Key has a better selection of products. Of course, this is because my needs are usually something extremely generic and simple like "I need some 400ohm resistors" or "I need an 8-bit shift register," with a strong emphasis on the "anything goes" aspect.
On Digi-Key I get absolutely lost. There are thousands of options, with different form factors, costs, availability, specs, and more. Can I buy 5 of them? What's the lead time? Is it SMD or through? How much is shipping? Which vendor do I choose?
On AliExpress, I get a bunch of "5 8-bit shift registers for electronics projects" listings, check a couple of them, look up some info, and purchase one in a few minutes.
Of course this means I end up with mediocre, sometimes outright broken parts, but it feels like it's worth the time I save. I wish there was a curated list or an "easy mode" on Digi-Key.
Conversly when I want a power jack with a 3/4 inch hole diameter, 3 wires and no more than 1 inch penetration into the chassis. It is so nice to be able to go to a vendor that has actual metadata on the products they are selling. I hate going on amazon and having to wade through 15 pages of stuff.
What I have done when I find myself with several similar items on digikey and am unable to make a choice, I will go with whatever has the biggest inventory, the assumption being whatever sells the best will probably be the best... or at least the most available, which is good enough for me.
You can ignore most of the specs that are irrelevant to your project on parametric searches.
For example, here's how you'd find a generic through hole LED. Search for "through hole LED", pick a color, stocking option: in stock, sort by price, and pick whatever seems right for your project, making sure that you're not ordering something silly like 2500 LEDs (it'll be pretty obvious when you check out anyway). If there's something else that's relevant to your project (eg. the size or shape of the LED) then you can specify that.
The datasheet is just a click or two away to do a sanity check that you're ordering something that makes sense.
Obviously, for a generic component like a LED where the specs might not matter too much and it's fine if you get one of dubious quality, you can just get a random grab bag of LEDs off AliExpress. Or if the catalog overwhelms you, there's always Adafruit, SparkFun, Pololu, etc.
For passives, I have a bunch of resistor/capacitor/inductor/etc kits for through hole and SMD. You can buy them on Amazon so they're usually available fast. You don't have too worry much about the specs but definitely learn the basics like electrolytic vs solid state, voltage/current/power ratings, etc.
For ICs search Google for "<part description> breakout" which will often show you Sparkfun, Adafruit, or some other hacker focused shop/blog. For example, some results roughly ranked by obscurity: 8-bit shift register [1], thermocouple [2], air quality [3], CPLD [4], crosspoint switch [5].
For anything more complex than that - for example, a DLP micromirror device - you'll have to dig deeper and search for "<part description> dev kit". Manufacturers usually make dev kits using their flagship chips from which you can easily navigate related parts. Be prepared to spit your morning coffee out at some of the prices of this path though (i.e. aforementioned DLP dev kits are $1k+, easily twice what you'd pay for a DLP projector using the same chip)
I assume that's what your Amazon/Aliexpress searches have done by proxy (I often do use Amazon too for more basic stuff like relays, ESP8/32 etc. when I'm impatient)
Thanks for the tips! That's pretty much exactly what my process looks like today if I want to figure out which variant is the most "popular." Most of the uncertainty is specifically about specialist sites like Digi-Key.
For example, the 74HC595 you linked is a super common shift register, but DK Canada has 88 listings for it. Some surface mount, some in different DIP configurations, and now I have to scour through and figure out the one variant that works for me.
Generalist sites like Amazon and AliExpress tend to mostly stock the variants that tinkerers/makers want when prototyping, which makes it easier for me to plop "74HC595" in the search bar and quickly get a sensible result, especially when sorting by amount sold.
>See also the parametric search available at McMaster Carr
About 25 years ago I built a series of calculators for a competing industrial supplier, where you could match up the bolt / screw / washer / nut needed for each size, metal vs wood application, etc. Still a very relevant need today that I've seldom seen replicated usefully on any site.
https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/hex-head-screws/
or Digikey:
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/ceramic-capacitor...
or PCpartPicker:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/
compared to trying to find the same products on Amazon or AliExpress. Many of the products are available, but every product on those examples can be filtered against comparable products by the specs that matter to the engineers doing the selection. On other sites, the metadata is generated inconsistently by individual sellers.