Feature flags and feature branches each offer distinct advantages in software development, with flags enhancing flexibility and safety in production, while branches facilitate isolated development. Combining these methods allows for continuous delivery and frequent code deployment, reducing the risk of errors and enabling testing in production without impacting users. Feature flags provide the ability to toggle new features on and off, supporting gradual releases and minimizing the blast radius of unintended consequences. They also enable efficient A/B testing and experimentation by allowing different user groups to experience varied feature versions. Trunk-based development with short-lived feature branches helps mitigate "merge hell" by encouraging frequent integration of changes. Together, feature flags and feature branches offer a robust framework for deploying new features quickly, safely, and iteratively, without the constraints of a fixed-date release schedule.