Recorders are better value at any price point. The cheap ones (except for the very nasty one-piece toys) are made with better quality control than whistles at the same price - manufacturing volume counts, and many more recorders than whistles are produced. High-end hand-finished recorders are also better for the same money (several hundred years of design experience helps), though in this category you can always get a lemon with either. And no whistle matches the very best hand-made recorders.

Just try to find any whistle that matches a Mollenhauer/Breukink Dream Flute for the same money (mid-price). It's comparable to a Copeland whistle.

One category nobody's mentioned yet is cane whistles - I have two good ones, one made in China in the late 1970s and a Romanian one from a few years ago (both high D). The Chinese one is a bit like a more civilized Susato; the Romanian one (narrower bore) was supplied badly finished, with a very rough bore, but after internal sanding and oiling it sounds like a superior Dixon. The cheapest cane whistles (the Indian ones) even make a Generation sound good.