Understanding the concept of custom field is a key to optimizing WordPress as an open-source content management system. You can create a set of custom fields to store a set of information according to the needs of your website. For instance, you can create a set of custom fields like movie genre, movie rating, producer, director, and so on for a movie database website. Advanced Custom Fields (often shortened as ACF) is a plugin that you can use to effortlessly create custom fields in WordPress. The plugin allows you to assign custom fields to default post type (blog posts), a custom post type, taxonomies, and other content types on WordPress.
Advanced Field Types is especially a great plugin for WordPress users who don’t understand PHP. You can create custom fields using the plugin without touching a single line of code. While to display the data of the custom fields, you can use a page builder that supports custom fields like Divi Builder, Elementor, and Brizy. These three popular page builder plugins support integration with ACF. While ACF can’t be used to create a custom post type, its use is often paired with Custom Post Type UI (CPT UI). You can create a custom post type using CPT UI and then add custom fields to the newly created post type using ACF.
ACF itself is released as a freemium plugin. You can start with the free version to create your first custom fields, which is great if you are just getting started to learn WordPress custom fields. The free version of ACF allows you to add the following field types:
| Text | WYSIWYG Editor | Page Link |
| Text Area | oEmbed | Relationship |
| Number | Select | Taxonomy |
| Range | Checkbox | User |
| Radio Button | Google Map | |
| URL | Button Group | Date Picker |
| Password | True / False | Datetime Picker |
| Image | Link | Time Picker |
| File | Post Object | Color Picker |
Advanced Custom Fields Features
ACF Pro is a standalone plugin. Meaning that you can use it on your WordPress site without having ACF Free installed and activated. The pro version of ACF is available with more advanced features. Here are the features offered by ACF Pro:
- The Repeater Field
- ACF Blocks
- The Flexible Content Field
- Options Pages
- The Gallery Field
- The Clone field
ACF itself supports extensions to extend its functionality. You can find ACF extensions, be it free or paid, on this website.