Once upon a time I built user-installed software ( http://go.cd ). Using branches in version control is a horrible way to manage customers wanting different versions of your software: https://twitter.com/ph1/status/1260702766118232065

We used CD to build the software. Everyone got the same binary. Then we used configuration options (feature toggles) to control which customers got which features. The flags were encoded into the license key.

All that to say: never use git flow. It’s a horrible way to solve the problem the creator used it for, and also a really horrible way to build software generally.

Version control is a communication tool. Branches inhibit communication & delay integration. If you have to use them (OSS for example) keep them short-lived.