Buying direct gives you more known yield and control. ETFs are basically open ended, that is bonds maturing are replaced and hence you never actually get to a repayment date but maintain bond risk (which for gov bonds is the move in interest rates, rising rates cause bond prices to fall).
People are getting excited re bonds because all of a sudden rates are 4-5% and this looks great compared to 1.0% in early 2022. Do you remember how 4-5% looked when rates were falling in 2011-12? It looked bad. In other words its all relative to where its been. So dont get fooled by the absolute level. A view to where rates are going is necessary. Right now rates are not rising for no reason. Inflation has not been defeated and economies, esp the US are in good shape. You are better off in a good fund which has low interest rate risk (this is measured by a maths calc called Modified Duration, the higher this is the greater the risk to price change if rates move) to manage the risks. Simply check their track record, look for no negative returns in the past 5 years as this will show if the fund dodged the bond rout of 2022 when many funds returned neg 5-10%!!
