Branching adds too much "meta complexity". That is complexity that you cannot track in actual deployed code. You need processes to manage the branches and to de

Branching adds too much "meta complexity". That is complexity that you cannot track in actual deployed code. You need processes to manage the branches and to determine when and how to merge. And merging branches is always an error prone process itself. And if you have one deployment target, like a web application, you probably need several staging environments for your branches, so branching does not become the bottleneck towards production. Also if you have test code that is maintained elsewhere (e.g. UI tests), that code cannot reflect your feature changes transparently. In comparison to that: feature toggles. You need one branch (developers can still can have private branches). And the transitions are transparent in your code. Actually, all the complexity is forwarded to the code and toggle management. Most people understand the concept of toggles better than branching workflows / processes. Toggles are easier to test and your tests do reflect that features are changing. I made my decision. I will never have official branches again in any of the projects I supervise.