Self-ligating braces are a kind of a fixed on braces, the difference between self-ligating braces and traditional braces is how we tie the wire to the bracket itself, so, if you look at traditional braces, we are actually using a small wire or a little rubber, we tie those colourful things to hold the wire to the tooth, the wire is the one that is actually moving the wire in that sense.
A self-ligating brace basically, the bracket is designed to have a locking mechanism that actually locks the wire in place, because of this locking mechanism, there is less friction in the system because when you are tying very tightly to the braces, the braces can't really move well, whereas the self-ligating braces because of the system, there is less friction, between the wires and the brackets, so we can a gentler or a lower level of force to move teeth, because in order for teeth to move we need to take away friction.
In its essence, it is more gentle in terms of force to move teeth with self lifting braces. I generally find that self-ligating braces because of the low level of force it works well for expansion.
Whether I recommend it, it depends, I will say. So again, it boils down to what cases we are dealing with. If you are talking about an extraction case, generally, I don't find a big difference in an extraction case between metal braces or self-ligating braces.
Maybe you can save a few hundred dollars and save and do traditional braces. If you are talking about maybe borderline and can do without taking out teeth and need a little expansion then maybe you can consider self-ligating braces.