Can some one explain to me the different between the Copy Sop and Merge Sop?

I know they do different things, But im trying to learn when to use either or.

Hi Lmayfield,
I guess as you are getting to see multiple geometries copied on template points as a output of copy sop, you feel that copy sop is merging these geometries (?).
Copy and merge sop are entirely different. Best option to learn more about these operators is, go to help > start here> Node based workflow and watch the procedural forest tutorial. Also go through the help.

And the worst option is going through my explanation (I am a beginner) , still I will try to explain

What I understood about copy sop is that apart from creating multiple copies of the input geometry, it sort of establishes the relationship between the point which is being used to copy the geometry on to (template point) and the geometry that is going to get copied .
This relation is related to attributes(copy > Attribute > toggle on template point attribute). You can create point attributes (for exa - color, pscale etc)on the template points and copy sop makes it possible to transfer those attributes to the geometries which are going to get copied.
Toggle off the ‘transform using template point attributes’ and see its effect
( Turning it on , applies translations, rotations and scales according to the trans, rot, and scale point attributes on the template points to the geometries , if these attributes exists)
With stamp, you can bring variation in those point attribute values.

Merge sop
It merges the geometries from it's inputs which you can fed in as a input to other operators.
You can use it to see the output of all it's input node at the same time.

Hi everyone , Please correct me if I am wrong.