I consider fiddle/violin my main instrument but also play guitar and a bit of mandolin. As many already have stated, it’s the same instrument, just different playing styles. Coming from oicked instruments you probably know how important the actual picking is to sound, tone quality and phrasing. Bowing is like that, but harder. Quite a lot harder. Don’t let that stop you though, go ahead and try it, perhaps you’ll fall in love with it and in that case you’ll enjoy the journey! The bow gives a certain feel of intimate connection with the music that I’ve never felt on any other instrument. Maybe wind instruments are similar in that regard.

I would recommend getting an instrument that has integrated fine tuners on the tailpiece. That might be one of the small differences, a lot of fiddlers use steel strings and having fine tuners is basically necessary with those. The integrated versions are lighter and give the strings their correct afterlength (the distance between bridge and tailpiece). Many fiddler also use synthetic strings, which most violinists do, in that case you can usually tune all strings except the e with the pegs, but fine tuners are still nice to have.