I am also exploring the two so maybe I can offer a little advice that might help you save some money.
Flutes are amazing but very difficult to get started. We have tried the Irish flute along with Ney, Kaval, Bansuri and Japanese festival flute and have only managed to use the Ney a little. That took almost a year to get consistent sounds out of it.
So thanks to the kind people here on this site, we are now talking to a couple instrument makers about creating a whistle that matches some of the flute qualities we had been looking for.
I can say this, I have a Susato low D now and it took a couple days before we had test recorded some lines of whistle in our music. I can`t wait until we have our custom instrument to explore in greater detail. But for a starter the Low D is amazing and not impossible to play with some patience. Just scratching the surface is a lot of fun, it will be wonderful to learn and explore this instrument.