Can someone explain to me the difference between a hotswap & a soder please.

[Creton]

I'm slowly trying to get into this cool hobby and I need to learn and trying to do some research but this website isn't too easy to understand lol. I'm trying to build a 65% but don't really know whether I should start my first keyboard with a hot-swap and where can I buy one quickly... thank you to anyone who tries to help a brother out 

[jamster]

https://www.keebtalk.com/t/rama-hot-swap-vs-soldering/10471
https://docs.splitkb.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013098499-Why-would-I-want-to-use-hot-swap-sockets-for-my-switches-
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=104777.0

And many more

[yui]

hot-swap allows you to switch switches on the fly, although the sockets have a bad reliability reputation and the switches may be able to move a bit depending on how you mounted them.
Solder is the old school method were you use molten metal to fix your switches in place and make the contact, makes switching switches much harder but they will never have a bad contact, well unless the solder job was very poor.

so depends really, if you are really unsure about what switches you want but set on your layout then maybe shell out the extra to get a hot-swap, if you are still very unsure you want 65% or something else maybe go for a cheap soldered board, so that way you learn to solder better (if you do not already know) and you spend less on trying the layouts, maybe.

[Leslieann]

I recently discovered another issue with hot swaps.

It's not enough to effect stock springs like most people use but if you're one who likes really light spring rates hot swaps can induce a bit of bind by distorting the housing due to tolerances between the plate, pcb and switch being tightened. It's only a couple grams of added friction but on ultra light springs and tactiles the difference between working and binding is often only a few grams.