Git flow vs trunk-based development

Git Flow and trunk-based development are both valid branching strategies — the right choice depends on how your team ships and whether you must maintain multiple deployed versions simultaneously.

Git Flow — structured release management

• Git Flow works around two long-lived branches: main holds production code and develop accumulates features; release branches stabilize a version before it merges to main
• Built for teams that ship versioned releases on a schedule — the release/* branch gives a freeze window for QA without blocking new feature work on develop
• The hotfix dual-merge trap catches most teams eventually: a hotfix/* branch must merge to both main and develop; skip the develop merge and the fix silently disappears when the next release is cut

Trunk-based development — continuous integration as a practice

• Everyone integrates small, complete changes to main (or a short-lived branch measured in hours) — the merge conflict rate drops because branches diverge for a day, not weeks
• Incomplete features hide behind feature flags rather than long-lived branches, which decouples deployment from release — you ship code to production before the feature is user-facing
• Requires a fast CI pipeline and a culture of green builds; a broken main blocks everyone, so the feedback loop must be short enough that developers fix it immediately

How to choose

• Trunk-based is the right default for most Java backend teams: fewer conflicts, faster integration, and a forcing function for small commits
• Git Flow is justified when the team contractually supports multiple deployed versions — B2B SaaS customers on staggered upgrade schedules, libraries that maintain multiple minor version branches

Invest in feature flag infrastructure before adopting trunk-based — it is the mechanism that makes incomplete features safe to deploy.