And it brings a host of updates that will directly impact developers working with ACF PRO. With over 400 Core Trac tickets, including 125+ enhancements and 250+ bug fixes, the 6.9 release continues to evolve in powerful ways.

In addition to updates in the Block Editor, Site Editor, and performance, this release focuses heavily on new block registration, field systems, API architecture, and editor workflows, all of which are critical for developers using ACF PRO to manage custom fields and custom content types.

There are several key changes you’ll want to pay attention to—especially the introduction of the Abilities API, improvements to the Field API, and major updates to the Block Editor and DataViews.

ACF PRO remains fully compatible with WordPress 6.9, and the updates will provide exciting new opportunities for block development, AI integration, and aligning your custom field systems with the evolving WordPress landscape.

Let’s dive into the most important updates for ACF PRO users in this release.

The Abilities API: Major Impact for ACF PRO

As part of the broader initiative AI Building Blocks for WordPress, the Abilities API acts as a unified capability registry that allows WordPress Core, plugins, themes, and even AI tools to register their functionality in a machine-readable format.

Essentially, it’s a way to tell WordPress software what each plugin or theme can do, and it opens up significant potential for automation and enhanced integrations.

Why this matters for ACF PRO

For ACF PRO developers, the Abilities API is crucial because it paves the way for interoperability between ACF and other WordPress software components, particularly when it comes to AI tools.

Here’s why this matters:

• Full Schema Interaction: This upcoming feature will allow ACF to interact seamlessly with the Abilities API. Once available, ACF data will become easily discoverable and accessible by any compatible tool, allowing you to connect ACF data, such as Field Groups and Custom Post Types (CPTs), directly to other plugins, themes, or even AI tools.
• Ready for Agentic AI: The integration with Agentic AI means that ACF content will be first-class data for any AI-driven tool that can read structured content. This has massive implications for workflows involving AI assistants, content generation, and automation.
  
• Controlled Access: Importantly, this will be an opt-in feature. As a developer, you’ll have full control over whether you expose ACF data to AI tools. Administrators will need to enable it explicitly, ensuring that data is only shared when you want it to be.

As AI continues to evolve, the Abilities API sets the stage for ACF data to become much more dynamic and discoverable, allowing ACF users to automate processes and integrate custom fields in ways never before possible.

Field API Updates

The 6.9 release includes some crucial updates to the Field API, including:

• 10+ new field types
• 11+ new edit controls with validation
• and 16+ filter operators.

There are also new options like readOnly field attributes and expanded filterBy capabilities. 

While this may seem like a minor change, it has major implications for how ACF PRO developers will work with custom fields in the future.

For ACF users, these changes are primarily intended to power the new WordPress AdminViews, a modern interface for managing data directly within the WordPress admin. 

Here’s how this impacts ACF developers:

• Focus on AdminViews: The updates to the Field API are designed to support a more modern, UI-driven approach to managing fields in the WordPress admin. While ACF fields themselves won’t change immediately, this update aligns with the WordPress ecosystem’s new approach to data management.

DataViews & DataForms Improvements

One of the most powerful updates in the 6.9 release is the improvements made to DataViews and DataForms. These are essential for developers using ACF field data in the WordPress admin, particularly for building custom UIs and improving data management.

Key improvements include:

• Infinite Scroll: This feature allows you to display large datasets efficiently without manually paginating, which is essential for sites with ACF Repeater fields or relationship fields.
• New Layouts: New Card, Row, and Activity layouts are available, offering more flexible and interactive ways to present data in custom admin views.
• State-managed Children: This enables custom layouts that automatically manage state, including filtering, sorting, and pagination.
• Improved Validation: A complete overhaul of validation for synchronous and asynchronous checks ensures your data is always accurate and reliable.

These Core updates provide the architectural primitives that could allow ACF to eventually offer highly customizable admin dashboards for your Custom Post Types—enabling you to build rich, interactive views (like Kanban boards or galleries) directly within the plugin.

The addition of infinite scroll and better state management paves the way for future ACF interfaces to handle thousands of repeater rows or relationship connections with significantly improved performance.

As these standards mature, ACF can leverage them to create “DataForm-native” editing screens that feel like a seamless part of the modern WordPress admin, moving beyond the classic metabox design.

Block Editor & Block Architecture Updates

The 6.9 release introduces several updates to the Block Editor, many of which will make working with ACF Blocks easier and more intuitive.

1. Direct Drag and Drop

The ability to drag and drop blocks directly within the editor has been improved, making it easier to organize ACF Blocks in the editor. This is particularly useful for developers creating custom layouts and reusable components.

2. Ability to Hide Blocks

This release introduces a feature where you can hide blocks without losing their field data. This is especially useful for content editors who want to stage content without permanently deleting it.

3. Iframe Integration & apiVersion 3 Enforcement

The transition toward using iframes for the WordPress block editor is progressing, and apiVersion 3 has been enforced for all new or updated blocks. This ensures a consistent and stable block registration process moving forward.

ACF Impact

ACF Blocks V3 are fully compatible with iframe-based block editors and apiVersion 3. This ensures that ACF Blocks remain fully functional within the evolving WordPress editor.

Additionally, the new streaming block parses (WP_Block_Processor) improves the way ACF Blocks encoded in raw HTML or patterns are processed, ensuring that your blocks parse more reliably.

New Blocks & Improvements Relevant to ACF Developers

The 6.9 release introduces several new blocks, including:

• Accordion Block
• Term Query Block, Math Block
• and Improved Heading / Time-to-Read blocks.

The new native blocks will help reduce the need for custom ACF Blocks for common use cases. 

However, ACF Blocks built using the <InnerBlock> component can now integrate these new blocks directly into your custom ACF Block layouts, saving time and development effort.

Updates to Block Bindings API

The Block Bindings API is being improved in the 6.9 release, providing a more intuitive way to manage block attributes and integrate ACF fields.

• Developers can now easily switch between sources and bind/unbind attributes with a single click.
• The new block_bindings_supported_attributes_{$block_type} filter makes it even easier to map ACF fields to block attributes.

These improvements streamline the way ACF Blocks interact with the block architecture in WordPress software, making it easier to manage and map ACF fields to block attributes, especially for dynamic and interactive blocks.

Expect ACF support for the block bindings UI soon.

Updates to Interactivity API

The Interactivity API has been updated to support more predictable state management and directive handling, which will directly benefit developers working with dynamic blocks.

For ACF users, creating interactive ACF Blocks can now rely on more consistent rendering and script management.

The result? Smoother, more predictable front-end interactions.

Updates to HTML API

The 6.9 release introduces important changes to the HTML API, such as making serialize_token() public and enforcing stricter script text handling.

These changes provide more robust sanitation when ACF manipulates or outputs HTML data, ensuring cleaner and more secure handling of content.

Updated Admin Menu Search Query

The 6.9 release also changes how the admin menu search query behaves. It now uses $_GET instead of relying on the raw query strings ($_SERVER[‘QUERY_STRING’]).

Action required If you have ACF admin page extensions that depend on menu searches, you may need to review your assumptions and ensure compatibility with this updated search behavior. Make sure your custom code aligns with the new method for retrieving the search value in the admin menu.

PHP 8.5 (beta) Support

The 6.9 release introduces beta support for PHP 8.5, which will be fully supported in future releases.

Currently, ACF is testing and making sure we’ll be fully compatible and intend for an upcoming release to officially mark ACF as supporting PHP 8.5.

AI-Related Work Relevant to ACF PRO

The 6.9 release opens up exciting possibilities for AI-powered workflows, with the PHP AI Client and MCP Adapter tools.

• PHP AI Client allows you to integrate AI-assisted field workflows like autofill or content generation directly into ACF fields.
• MCP Adapter enables AI assistants to consume ACF field structures for automation.

These tools pave the way for AI-assisted content management, where ACF fields can be dynamically populated, modified, or enhanced by AI tools, improving workflow efficiency and unlocking new possibilities for automation.

Wrap up

This is not an exhaustive list of all the enhancements in WordPress 6.9. The official field guide includes additional updates that may also affect your ACF PRO workflows, such as:

• New REST API filters to better manage queries
• Updates to the admin menu search query for more predictable search behavior
• Improvements to accessibility across WordPress interfaces
• Further enhancements to the Block Editor and Site Editor
• And more…
  

These changes, while technical, offer many opportunities to streamline ACF workflows and improve integration with the broader WordPress ecosystem.

As always, make sure to back up your site before updating to the 6.9 release. And if you’re looking to leverage the full potential of ACF PRO’s features, stay tuned for upcoming releases that will make the most of the new updates in this release—especially in areas like AI integration, admin UI modernization, and data management.

FAQs

1. Is ACF PRO fully compatible with WordPress 6.9?

Yes. ACF PRO is compatible with all new block APIs, field updates, interactivity changes, and PHP 8.5 beta support in WordPress 6.9.

2. How does the new Abilities API affect ACF PRO?

The Abilities API allows ACF data to be more discoverable and interoperable with AI tools. It also provides more predictable access and control over data, enhancing future AI integrations.

3. Do the new Field API updates replace ACF fields?

No. The Core Field API is a standardization layer for managing data in WordPress admin interfaces. ACF will continue to provide powerful custom fields beyond what’s available in Core.

4. Will my existing ACF Blocks work with apiVersion 3 requirements?

Yes, but you should validate your blocks to ensure they are using ACF Blocks V3, which supports apiVersion 3 for future compatibility.

5. Does the new Hide Blocks feature affect ACF field data?

No. Hidden ACF Blocks retain their field data, which will reappear when the block is made visible again.

6. Does the Interactivity API update affect ACF Blocks?

Yes. The Interactivity API improvements help ACF Blocks work more predictably, especially for dynamic blocks with complex interactions.

7. Do I need to change anything due to the updated query cache or menu search?

Most users won’t need to change anything, but developers extending ACF admin pages may want to review assumptions about how menu search operates.

8. Can ACF integrate with the new PHP AI Client or MCP Adapter?

Yes. These integrations will allow AI-powered content generation directly into ACF fields and make ACF data more AI-friendly for future automation.

The post What’s New in WordPress 6.9: Key Changes ACF PRO Users Should Know appeared first on ACF.

This is your chance to join thousands of developers building with the real deal. This is the lowest price of the year on ACF PRO, available only for a limited time! Please note this discount is only available to new customers.

Unmissable Savings on ACF PRO

For a limited time, new customers can get up to 40% off ACF PRO licenses for the first year. This is the innovation you need to model complex data, now available at a price you can’t pass up.

Beyond ACF PRO, you can complete your entire developer toolkit with discounts from our partners. All discounts are for your first year only:

• WP Migrate Pro: This ultimate migration plugin is up to 50% off, allowing you to push and pull databases, media, themes, and plugins seamlessly.

• WP Offload Media: Reduce your server load and speed up delivery by offloading your media files to cloud storage. Save up to 40% on your first year.

• WP Offload SES: Ensure all your critical emails are reliably delivered. Save up to 20% on your first year.

• NitroPack: Achieve top scores on Core Web Vitals and get an instant site speed boost. Save up to 40% on plans (excluding the Starter Plan). This special discount replaces any existing evergreen deal.

ACF PRO is constantly evolving to meet the demands of modern development. The ACF Blocks V3 update is a game-changer, giving content editors a much-improved, streamlined experience where fields now open in a dedicated sidebar—making it easier to manage complex fields like Repeaters and Galleries.

Don’t Miss Out!

The time to invest in the tool trusted by pros is now. The sale runs from November 17th through December 5th, 2025.

The post Devs Who Know Choose ACF PRO: Get the Year’s Lowest Price on the Real Deal appeared first on ACF.

Building on Last Year’s Success

The 2024 survey provided us with a wealth of information about how our amazing community uses ACF to build incredible WordPress sites. We learned about your preferred workflows, the tools you rely on, and the features you’d like to see in future releases. Your input has been instrumental in guiding our development efforts, ensuring that ACF continues to evolve to meet your needs.

What to Expect in the 2025 Survey

This year’s survey builds upon the foundation laid in previous years. The survey consists of around 30 questions, most of which are multiple-choice, and should take no more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

We want to hear from you about:

• How you’re using ACF’s fields and features
• Your experiences with building WordPress sites
• What improvements or additions you’d like to see in ACF

Your input will help us better understand the trends in WordPress development and ensure that ACF remains the go-to solution for creating custom fields and metadata.

Results

After the survey closes, we will publish an aggregated version of the results. This will provide valuable insights into the current state of ACF and WordPress development. No personally identifiable data will be included; only aggregated and anonymized results.

Join the Conversation

We’re committed to making ACF the best it can be, and your participation is crucial to achieving that goal. Take the 2025 ACF Annual Survey today and help shape the future of ACF!

Thank you for being part of the ACF community, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts! Once you’ve completed the survey, you can help us spread the word on Twitter.

The post ACF’s Annual Survey 2025: Your Voice Matters appeared first on ACF.

In this article, we’ll preview the session we’ll present at DE{CODE} 2025, taking place April 15. You can register for DE{CODE} 2025 here to see how ACF transforms this chaos into control, ensuring sites remain efficient, scalable, and visually cohesive long after launch.

Let’s dive into what we’ll cover in our session.

Building Sustainably: Taming Content Debt

The Problem:
Content debt—outdated, duplicated, or inconsistent content—cripples scalability. Traditional workflows force manual updates or code changes, costing time and fraying design integrity.

The Solution: Relational Content Architecture
Chris Chatterton, Technical Director at AlphaSys, will join us to demonstrate how his team leverages ACF to build composable systems that reduce redundancy. Their secret?

Reusable Rows & Dynamic Blocks:
By creating a “Rows” custom post type, AlphaSys turns pages into modular stacks (heroes, CTAs, sections) editable in one place. Need a “Subscribe” row? Update it once, and every instance across the site reflects the change. As Chist notes, “We’ve replaced rigid templates with flexible, relational content. Now, clients manage updates without touching code—cutting content debt by 70%.”

Global Control with ACF Options Pages:
Manage site-wide settings (headers, footers, API keys) centrally. Pair this with custom blocks that pull dynamic data, and you’ve got a system where even third-party integrations stay consistent.

Event Tile Block Demo:
See how querying an “Events” CPT with ACF automatically populates course listings, complete with animations—no React required.

Fine-Tuning the Editorial Experience

The Challenge:
Clients need editorial freedom without risking design integrity. But default block settings often overwhelm users with unnecessary options.

The Solution: Strategic Editor Lockdown
Ren Therianto of Canvas Group shares their “zero-based budgeting” philosophy: only enable what’s essential. We’ll break down their four-step framework:

1. Control Patterns:
   Disable default patterns; create lean, purpose-built ones.
2. Restrict Blocks:
   Limit blocks by post type (e.g., some blocks only need paragraphs and headings).
3. Simplify Block Controls:
   Use theme.json to hide padding sliders, color pickers, and other distractions.
4. Build Custom Blocks:
   Replace complex layouts with intuitive ACF Blocks (e.g., a “Flip Card” block for interactive content).

“A minimalist editor isn’t about limiting creativity—it’s about focusing it,” Ren says. “Clients get exactly the tools they need, nothing more.”

ACF in 2025: A Sneak Peek

Capping off our presentation, ACF Product Manager Iain Poulson will unveil upcoming features designed to further streamline agency workflows. Expect enhancements in:

• Enhanced editing experience for ACF Blocks
• Easier ways to create ACF Blocks

Why Attend?

Our DE{CODE} 2025 session isn’t just theory—we’ll walk through code samples, live demos, and real-world case studies. You’ll leave with actionable strategies to:

• Slash content debt with reusable systems.
• Lock down the editor without stifling creativity.
• Future-proof sites using ACF’s 2025 roadmap.

Don’t let your hard work unravel post-launch. Turn chaos into control with ACF—register now to secure your spot for this session and others at DE{CODE} 2025.

The post From Chaos to Control with ACF: How Agencies Can Tame the WordPress Block Editor for Efficiency & Design Integrity appeared first on ACF.

TL;DR – Releases in 2024 allowed developers to install the free version of ACF with Composer, validate fields in ACF Blocks and store field data in the post meta table, launched a new Icon Picker field type, and included security enhancements and other improvements into a total of 25 releases throughout the year.

Let’s look back on the ACF highlights in 2024:

• Achievements
• Plugin Releases
• Website Improvements
• ACF Community and Feedback
• ACF in 2025
• Thanks

Achievements

ACF earned three different awards in 2024, all of them in competitions voted on by users.

The first award came in April, when ACF was named the top competitor in Torque’s Plugin Madness, a ladder-style tournament that starts with 64 plugins. This year’s competition means back-to-back wins for ACF, as we also clinched the top spot in 2023.

ACF was also voted the winner in the Best WordPress Dynamic Plugin category in the 2024 Monster’s Awards, an annual competition of the best WordPress products organized by TemplateMonster.

Finally, ACF was voted the best “Dynamic Data Plugin” in the 2024 WP Awards, as well as receiving the most votes in any category.

It’s always good to see ACF honored in these competitions, but we also love when users leave us glowing reviews:

Plugin Releases

We had a total of 25 releases in 2024, including 8 security releases and 1 major version release, ACF 6.3. This introduced validation support for fields in ACF Blocks and the ability to store ACF Block field data in the post meta table, as well as enhancements to the experience of selecting the menu icon for custom post types and ACF Options Pages, and improvements to the experience of selecting relational fields in conditional logic rules. It also included a brand new field type, the Icon Picker field.

ACF Blocks enhancements

Field validation is a powerful ACF feature, and the release of ACF PRO 6.3 brought this power to ACF Blocks. Introducing validation for fields within ACF Blocks allows rules like required fields, minimum and maximum values, and custom rules. This validation works the same as for post-wide fields and is enabled by default. Existing posts with ACF Blocks will be validated upon editing, and saving is prevented if validation fails. Validation can be disabled by adding validate: false to the block.json file.

By default, WordPress stores block field data in the post_content column. Starting with ACF PRO 6.3, ACF allows storing this data in the post meta table using the usePostMeta: true attribute in the block.json file. This facilitates easier querying and can be used to create custom post types with structured data entry.

Block Bindings API support

ACF PRO 6.2.8 included support for the WordPress Block Bindings API, introduced in WordPress 6.5. The Block Bindings API allows linking block attributes to external data sources such as custom fields (post meta) or custom PHP logic. This integration enables dynamic data display within existing blocks, complementing ACF Blocks by surfacing post or page meta in the block editor without the need for creating separate custom blocks for each field.

You can see a demo of how to use ACF Blocks with the Block Bindings API in the April 26th session of ACF Chat Fridays.

Icon picker

The past year also included the introduction of the first new field type in quite some time: the Icon Picker. This field gives developers a way to provide a user-friendly interface for choosing icons and supports various return formats, including string and array, to accommodate different use cases.

Enhanced conditional logic controls

Significant improvements have been made to the conditional logic feature. ACF allows you to set conditional logic rules to show and hide fields based on the value of another field in that group, empowering you to create dynamic forms. However, the previous experience could be challenging, as you needed to know the ID of the field to enter in the rule.

Now, whenever a Taxonomy, User, Relationship, Post Object, or Page Link field is used in a conditional logic rule, you can actually select from the data in the field without having to know the IDs. One of our ACF Chat Fridays sessions included a demo of the new conditional logic improvements.

HPOS Support

The first alpha release for ACF 6.4 introduced support for WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS). The testing phase is now complete, and the alpha release is no longer available. Watch for the full release of ACF 6.4 in 2025. In the meantime, you can see a demo of HPOS support we conducted during a session of ACF Chat Fridays.

Security Enhancements

We rolled out a number of updates throughout 2024 to address vulnerabilities and improve the overall security of the plugin. Please see the changelog for a complete list. I’ll hit the high points below.

• Unsafe HTML Handling: Starting with ACF 6.2.5, the plugin addressed the issue of unsafe HTML handling by running the ACF shortcode output through wp_kses to escape unsafe HTML. This change was extended to the_field and the_sub_field functions in subsequent updates, ensuring that these functions also output HTML-safe values by default. Users can opt-in to disable this automatic escaping using specific filters.

• Field Value Access: ACF 6.3.6 introduced a security measure where newly added fields must be explicitly set to allow access in the content editor, enhancing the security around field permissions.

• Shortcode Security: Starting with ACF 6.3, the shortcode is disabled by default for new installations, and users must enable it if necessary. Additional filters were introduced to limit the data the shortcode can access, such as the acf/shortcode/prevent_access filter.

• External Security Audit and Fixes: ACF conducted an external security audit and released numerous versions with security fixes. For example, ACF 6.2.7 fixed several security issues, including enforcing alphanumeric characters for field and layout names, preventing HTML rendering in select2 fields, and introducing a filter to limit shortcode access. Later versions, such as ACF 6.3.2 and 6.3.9, continued to patch various security vulnerabilities, including issues related to AJAX-enabled fields, permissions verification, and preventing stored XSS vulnerabilities.

• Minimum Version Requirements: Starting with ACF 6.3, the minimum required versions for PHP and WordPress were raised to 7.4 and 6.0, respectively, to ensure users keep their environments updated to the latest secure versions.

Website Enhancements

The ACF site at advancedcustomfields.com has been updated with our new logo and WP Engine branding. We’ve also created a new Downloads page to help our users make sure they’re downloading the latest version of the real ACF plugin.

On a somewhat related note, we introduced a new process for installing and updating to the latest version of ACF. We recommend using the new process going forward, as it will ensure you always have the latest copy of the real ACF plugin.

Speaking of installs, it’s always been possible to install ACF PRO with Composer, but in 2024 we made it possible to install the free version of ACF with Composer using our service as well.

Expanded ACF Blocks guides

We started pushing ahead on documenting how to get started with ACF Blocks in 2023, and we’ve continued to create tutorials and guides throughout 2024, including how to extend ACF Blocks with block supports, disable field validation, save ACF Block values to post meta, use block context with ACF Blocks, and compile multiple ACF Blocks with scripts.

Getting started with ACF

ACF is so powerful and flexible that you can use it to do practically anything. That can actually be a bit of a problem for new users, who might be confused about where and how to start. That’s why we introduced a video series in 2024 designed to get new users up to speed quickly. The series starts with an introductory video on how ACF works, moves on to custom fields and field groups, and then gives informative overviews of creating custom posts and custom taxonomies with ACF.

We also put out some more advanced guides in 2024, including a look at security best practices when using ACF, and a guide on how to improve ACF’s performance on your WordPress site.

ACF Community and Feedback

Following the success of our first annual user survey in 2023, we ran a similar survey 2024 to help chart changes in the ACF plugin over time and gather useful feedback. The 2024 survey helped to deepen our understanding of user preferences, development practices, and emerging trends within the WordPress ecosystem. Check out the results from the 2024 user survey and gain some insight into how developers like you are adapting to the latest advancements in WordPress.

I’ve already mentioned ACF Chat Fridays a few times in this post, mostly linking to demos we’ve conducted during the sessions. We held a total of 16 of these open office hour sessions in 2024, with more to come in 2025. Everyone is welcome to attend, and it’s still one of the best ways to interact directly with the development team and other ACF users. You can see past sessions here or on YouTube, and make sure to register for the next session.

ACF was also a part of DE{CODE} 2024, WP Engine’s virtual developer conference. During the session, Rob Stinson and Liam Gladdy walked attendees through different examples of custom blocks that can be created using ACF. The session helped to showcase the versatility and power of ACF Blocks in combination with the WordPress block editor.

ACF in 2025

We’re hard at work on ACF 6.4, and should have another alpha release available for testing early in 2025. In addition to adding support for WooCommerce’s HPOS, ACF 6.4 will include a significant refactor of how ACF stores and retrieves field values, potentially reducing the number of queries needed. This refactor will make it easier to add future integrations.

ACF Blocks will likely see some new features and enhancements in 2025 as well, such as a new UI for registering ACF Blocks directly within the plugin, and inline editing for Text and Text Area fields within the block editor. Inline editing is primarily intended to make the content editing experience for ACF Blocks smoother and more aligned with native WordPress blocks. This would allow content editors to edit ACF fields directly in the block preview mode without switching to edit mode.

We’re also going to look into adding custom icon library support to the Icon Picker field. While this is a highly-requested feature, there are some implementation challenges, such as pagination and search functionality within large icon sets. If everything goes well, we may even expand the Icon Picker’s functionality to serve as a general purpose “media picker,” giving you the ability to allow content editors to choose from a pre-selected set of various media types: images, audio clips, video files, etc.

Development is proceeding at a rapid pace. Make sure to sign up for our mailing list for the latest news, and stay up to date by registering for ACF Chat Fridays.

Statistics

Let’s take a look at some of the stats from the past year.

Development

The engineering team has continued to do great work in 2024:

• Shipped 1 major release
• Shipped 16 minor releases, release candidates, and betas
• Shipped 8 security releases
• Pushed 2,257 commits of code

Support

The ACF support team continued their amazing work in 2024:

• Answered a total of 10,765 tickets (+866)
• Sent a total of 17801 replies
• An average of 897 tickets per month (+72)
• Average customer satisfaction score of 95.83% (+2.33%)

Community Engagement Stats

• Held 16 sessions of ACF Chat Fridays
• Surveyed 1,350 users in our annual survey
• Published 75 blog posts, tutorials, and updated docs
• Held 3 WP Engine Builder sessions dedicated to ACF

Usage

The free version of ACF is at 2 million+ installs, with WordPress.org reporting that over 50% of them are running ACF 6.3:

Let’s have a look at data about sites that activated ACF PRO in 2024:

ACF Major Version

WordPress Version

PHP Version

I’m particularly pleased to see the increase in use of PHP 8+ this year. Last year, PHP 7.4 topped the chart with 37%!

Thanks

As I reflect on the past year, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the ACF team and the wider WP Engine company. Your dedication and hard work have been instrumental in driving our progress and expanding the capabilities of ACF.

The last few months of 2024 were certainly challenging, but it was amazing to see such support for ACF from the community. We see you and appreciate you!

As we look forward to 2025, we are excited to continue building such a special plugin and we hope to make it even more awesome. Your continued feedback and participation are crucial in helping us shape the future of ACF. Please let us know in the comments what you would like to see from us in the coming year.

Thank you once again for being an integral part of our journey. Here’s to another year of innovation and collaboration!

The post ACF 2024 Year in Review: A New Field Type and ACF Blocks Enhancements appeared first on ACF.

Advanced Custom Fields is a sophisticated plugin with over 200,000 lines of code, which we continually develop, enhance, support and invest in to meet the needs of our users across WordPress.  We’ve made 15+ releases over the past two years, since joining WP Engine, and added significant new functionality to the free plugin as well as continually improving performance and our security and testing practices to meet the ‘enterprise grade’ that our users deserve.

The change to our published distribution, and under our ‘slug’ which uniquely identifies the ACF plugin and code that our users trust in the WordPress.org plugin repository, is inconsistent with open source values and principles.  The change made by Mullenweg is maliciously being used to update millions of existing installations of ACF with code that is unapproved and untrusted by the Advanced Custom Fields team.

We are directly able to protect WP Engine, Flywheel hosting and ACF PRO customers –  you are not impacted and do not need to take any action. You will continue to get the latest innovations and updates from the experts in the ACF team. The ACF code on wordpress.org is no longer controlled by the ACF team.

We have been made aware that the Advanced Custom Fields plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress dot org.

A plugin under active development has never been unilaterally and forcibly taken away from its creator without consent in the 21 year history of… pic.twitter.com/eV0qakURLc

— Advanced Custom Fields (@wp_acf) October 12, 2024

If you have a site managed elsewhere using the free version of ACF, in order to get genuine ACF updates you must perform a one-time download of the 6.3.8 version via advancedcustomfields.com to remain safe in the future. After this one-time download you will be able to update as usual via the WP Admin panel.

You can also follow the same process if your site has already been upgraded to the modified “Secure Custom Fields” plugin, to get back to a genuine version of ACF.

Mullenweg’s actions are extraordinarily concerning and pose the grave risk of upending and irreparably harming the entire WordPress ecosystem.  His attempt to unilaterally take control of this open platform that we and so many other plugin developers and contributors have relied on, in the spirit of sharing plugins for all, provides further evidence of his serious abuse of trust, manifold conflicts of interest, and breach of the promises of openness and integrity in the community.

The post ACF Plugin no longer available on WordPress.org appeared first on ACF.

On a personal note, June marked three years for me working as the product manager for the plugin. As a huge ACF fan and long time user (I still use it on all my sites), being able to help grow the plugin, make it even more awesome, and work every day with such a talented team is a real pleasure.

Like ACF, it’s been two years since I joined WP Engine, moving from a small team at Delicious Brains to a much larger company. The time has flown by—it’s a great place to work with awesome people who care about our customers deeply. Crucially, I’ve been blown away by how much WP Engine “gets” ACF—its place in the ecosystem, the responsibility we have to ACF’s large user base, and the plugin’s underlying mission: to enable users to build WordPress sites their way. WP Engine has taken up the role of stewards of ACF with seriousness and commitment, investing in the team and the product, whilst allowing us to keep doing what we do best—releasing features and improving the plugin.

Let’s recap some of the innovation and investment in the plugin over the last 2 years.

Investment and Innovation

Custom Post Types and Taxonomies

For the longest time, a typical site building workflow would consist of registering a custom post type using code or another plugin, then adding custom fields to that post type with ACF. If you’re adding data other than posts or pages—let’s face it, 99% of the time—this is the content modeling process you would follow. ACF made all this possible with ACF 6.1 released in 2023. Adding this functionality to the free ACF plugin was a major addition for the free user base.

There’s no need for an extra plugin and you can craft your custom post types and taxonomies in the UI with easy-to-understand settings. You can also export them as PHP code or use ACF’s powerful JSON sync to store them in version control and collaborate with your team.

ACF Blocks

Since Gutenberg landed in WordPress core, ACF Blocks has been the way to create custom blocks with PHP, rather than using React. Since then, it’s grown alongside changes to the block editor, introducing block.json support in ACF PRO 6.0 along with significant architectural changes required to keep pace with continual changes in Gutenberg, keeping your ACF Blocks working across multiple versions of WordPress in a fully backwards compatible way.

More recently we’ve added support for validation of fields in blocks and the ability to store block field data in the post meta table.

There’s more coming later this year, and work is underway to improve the technical foundations of the feature to allow further innovation and to bring the UI and UX more closely aligned with native blocks, so your content editors won’t know the difference when using them.

New User Interfaces

We gave the plugin admin UI a spruce up with much needed UX improvements in ACF 6.0, and we are closely tracking the design changes to the WordPress admin coming in WordPress core, so we can ensure ACF’s admin works optimally within the dashboard.

In ACF 6.2 we shipped a new UI for registering Options Pages with ACF PRO as well as a much needed way to create bidirectional relationship fields without using custom code.

We’re committed to improving user workflows and implementing UIs, instead of requiring custom code, which improves the plugin for all types of ACF users.

Security

Sometimes the most important investments happen behind the scenes. With a user base as large as ACF’s, security is an extremely important concern. Since joining WP Engine, the way the plugin’s security is handled has really stepped up a notch. The ACF engineers have always been security-focused, however with a large and older codebase there are always things to improve.

With the help of WP Engine’s security team and engineering leadership, we’ve been able to put in place a Vulnerability Disclosure Program for the plugin, invested in an external audit of the codebase for proactive security improvements, and have prioritized security releases to patch discovered vulnerabilities with the utmost speed. We’ve shipped over 15 security releases since joining WP Engine two years ago, which is over three times as many as in the previous 10 years!

Accessibility

Along with security, accessibility has been something we’ve committed to improving in the plugin in our releases since joining WP Engine. ACF 6.0 contained numerous accessibility fixes in our admin UI and new features like the field type selection modal and Icon Picker field type have been built from the ground up with accessibility at the forefront of development.

Community

The ACF community is amazing! There is a Slack channel, multiple Facebook groups, forums and more. However, we wanted to talk to users more and get direct feedback. With the help of WP Engine’s user research team we set up the first ever ACF Annual Survey in 2023, and have just recently closed this year’s survey with results planned later this month.

The ACF engineers have really leaned in by helping me run regular open office hours—ACF Chat Fridays—that gives ACF users the opportunity to chat to the team, discuss new features, and for us to showcase what’s been recently released and what’s coming.

We have also leveraged WP Engine’s wider product feedback platform to allow ACF users to request features and vote on others, so we can better gauge what matters most to you. The public feedback board is an important tool for me to help plan future releases

Contribution

Along with maintaining the free and open source ACF plugin that runs on over 2 million websites, the ACF team actively contributes to WordPress core. Over the last couple of years this has taken many forms, but here are the highlights:

• Anthony Burchell is a core committer and maintainer of the Media Component
• Liam Gladdy reported a security vulnerability that allowed shortcodes to be used in FSE theme’s comment sections to expose data
• Liam caught a bug in WordPress 6.6 RC3 just in time before general release
• Matt Shaw reported and fixed a bug with a change in the site editor triggering all posts to appear as templates to third party plugins
• Liam has been active in Gutenberg GitHub discussions to ensure the Block Bindings API works with ACF and other custom field plugins
• Liam has also been working to help deliver the new Bits functionality in the block editor

Additionally, all of the engineering team spends a significant part of their working week testing and validating WordPress releases and new features, leading to many bug reports being submitted on both GitHub and trac, along with trying to advance extendability of the block editor for plugin developers by suggesting where APIs should be public or created, and pushing for more hooks and filters to try and make the block editor as easy to develop for as classic is.

We’re also committed to helping WordPress sites upgrade to the latest versions of PHP and WordPress itself, to ensure that the large number of WordPress sites are as secure as possible. In the last few major versions of ACF we have been raising the minimum versions of PHP and WP required to run ACF and ACF PRO, in order to encourage users to upgrade their sites and servers.

What’s Next

Here’s a look at what we’re working on for the next few releases of ACF.

We’re currently working on adding support for WooCommerce’s HPOS feature to allow ACF fields to be added to the WooCommerce orders screen now that HPOS moves orders from the posts table to a custom database table.

Matt Shaw did a great demo in a recent ACF Chat Fridays session:

To support HPOS there has been a significant refactor in how ACF stores and retrieves data across the various storage locations (post meta, user meta, term meta etc) and this work builds the foundation for more innovation next year, such as the ability to store ACF field values in a custom database table, a heavily requested feature on our feedback board.

The team is also working hard on implementing a new UI for registering ACF Blocks without the need to create a JSON file or use PHP code, allowing users to register blocks and then create the render template. Blocks will be able to be synced with JSON and exported as we do for field groups, post types, taxonomies, and Options Pages. ACF Blocks will get even more love to ensure it continues to be the best way for developers to quickly and easily create custom blocks.

We have a big roadmap with lots of improvements to make, but please let us know what matters the most to you on our feedback board.

The Future

ACF is a hugely important plugin in the WordPress community, and an essential tool for so many developers and site builders. Myself, the ACF team, and all of WP Engine are committed to ensuring it gets better every day. Here’s to many more years!

The post Reflecting on Two Years at WP Engine appeared first on ACF.

Building on Last Year’s Success

The 2023 survey provided us with a wealth of information about how you, our amazing community, use ACF to build incredible WordPress sites. We learned about your preferred workflows, the tools you rely on, and the features you’d like to see in future releases. Your input has been instrumental in guiding our development efforts, ensuring that ACF continues to evolve to meet your needs.

What to Expect in the 2024 Survey

This year’s survey builds upon the foundation laid last year. The survey consists of around 30 questions, most of which are multiple-choice, and should take no more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

We want to hear from you about:

• How you’re using ACF’s fields and features
• Your experiences with building WordPress sites
• What improvements or additions you’d like to see in ACF

Your input will help us better understand the trends in WordPress development and ensure that ACF remains the go-to solution for creating custom fields and metadata.

Results

After the survey closes, we will publish an aggregated version of the results soon after the survey closes, providing valuable insights into the current state of ACF and WordPress development. No personally identifiable data will be included in this, only aggregated and anonymized results.

Join the Conversation

We’re committed to making ACF the best it can be, and your participation is crucial to achieving that goal. Take the 2024 ACF Annual Survey today and help shape the future of ACF!

Thank you for being part of the ACF community, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts! Once you’ve completed the survey, you can help us spread the word on Twitter.

The post ACF’s Annual Survey 2024: Your Voice Matters appeared first on ACF.

The default WordPress search capability often falls short when it comes to surfacing relevant content from searches. It offers almost no configuration for weighting of data, doesn’t support operators to search for multiple words together, and it won’t search data from post meta, so it won’t pick up anything from ACF!

WP Engine Smart Search, on the other hand, was designed with the ACF community in mind. Out of the box, custom post types created with ACF will automatically index without requiring any custom coding. This is perfect for a site like advancedcustomfields.com, which uses a ‘resources’ custom post type for its documentation section.

By implementing WP Engine Smart Search, we aim to save you time and help ensure that whether you’re searching for tutorials, documentation, or support articles, you can trust that the results will be more precise and comprehensive than ever before. The new search capability on ACF also leverages the new AI-Powered Hybrid Search, a natural language search feature that gives you a GPT-like experience, combining traditional keyword-based with semantic search to produce more relevant search results. AI-Powered Hybrid Search is currently in beta testing.

WP Engine Smart Search is a unique and powerful search tool that sets itself apart from other solutions on the market. It is both easy to set up and highly customizable, making it the perfect choice for improving your site experience quickly or going beyond basic search results. Furthermore, WP Engine Smart Search is headless-ready, working flawlessly with headless WordPress sites.

“As if that wasn’t enough, Smart Search enhances the speed of site searches by transferring the indexing and search processes away from your WordPress MySQL database to a specialized search server,” says Luke Patterson, Product Manager for Smart Search.. “This approach significantly reduces the load on your WordPress site, making searches quicker and more efficient.”

The video below walks through the complete process of integrating WP Engine Smart Search with ACF to enhance searchability, using Taylor Swift lyrics as an example. You can also dive into the codebase on GitHub.

Try the improved search experience today and see for yourself how much easier it is to find the information you need, and explore how using WP Engine Smart Search for your WordPress sites enhances search capabilities and improves the user experience.

The post Revolutionizing Search: WP Engine Smart Search Now Live on ACF appeared first on ACF.

TL;DR – Releases in 2023 made it possible for developers to install ACF PRO with Composer, brought custom post type and taxonomy registration into the plugin, introduced a UI for the Options Pages feature, brought in native bidirectional relationships, and packed numerous bug fixes and improvements into 12 other minor and beta releases.

Let’s take a look back at 2023:

• Achievements
• Plugin Releases
• Website Improvements
• User Feedback and Community Growth
• What’s Ahead in 2024?
• Thanks

Achievements

ACF was fortunate enough to earn awards in two different user-voted competitions in 2023.

In April, ACF took the top spot in Torque Magazine’s annual Plugin Madness competition. ACF won the inaugural Plugin Madness in 2016, and made an appearance on the bracket every year since.

Results from the WP Awards were announced in December, with ACF earning the most votes in the Dynamic Data Plugins category, as well as receiving the most votes in any category. This marks the second year in a row ACF has earned this distinction.

It’s great to see ACF recognized like this, but I also love seeing individual users recognizing just how useful ACF is for them:

Plugin Releases

We started off 2023 with ACF 6.0.7, but it was the second release of 2023, ACF 6.1, that really got people talking. It introduced the ability to create custom post types and taxonomies directly within the plugin. This was one of our most often requested features, and now registering post types and taxonomies in ACF’s UI is as slick and intuitive as creating field groups and fields:

This release also updated ACF’s JSON sync, import, and export tools to include post types and taxonomies registered with ACF.

Field Selection Modal

The dropdown field selection menu wasn’t always clear, especially for new users. ACF 6.1 introduced the “Browse Fields” button, which opens a modal showcasing field types in a way that’s easy to search and informative, including descriptions, visual representations, and links to documentation.

ACF 6.1 included a host of other improvements, such as full compatibility with PHP 8.1 and 8.2, the ability to filter the post status for post objects fields, customizable field settings tabs, and improved test coverage.

Options Page UI

The development team kept up a regular cadence of bug fix and enhancement releases over the next few months, culminating in the release of ACF 6.2 in early August. This release introduced the ability to create options pages right from the plugin admin UI in ACF PRO, brought bidirectional relationship functionality natively to the plugin, and included enhanced support for registering multiple locations for JSON files.

The Options Page feature in ACF PRO allows you to register global, site-wide fields and place them on new pages in the WordPress admin. This has long been a feature of ACF PRO, but prior to ACF 6.2, they would have to be registered using a code snippet. This wasn’t ideal for workflow, as you had to create field groups, save them, go to your code editor to register the page, and then reload the field group editor to select the options page in the location rules.

ACF PRO 6.2 introduced a UI to do this within the plugin, making it possible to create settings and child pages with just a few clicks:

Bidirectional Relationships

ACF’s Relationship, Post Object, User, and Taxonomy fields types give you the ability to create relationships between data objects, but this connection was only one way. Bidirectional relationships required a code snippet or a third-party plugin.

That changed with the release of ACF 6.2. The four relational field types now have an “Advanced” settings tab, with a toggle allowing you to turn on bidirectional mode and set the field to store the connection data on the other side of the relationship.

More enhancement, bug fix, and security releases followed in the closing months of 2023, culminating in the release of ACF 6.2.4 in late November.

Other Improvements

Along with working on our internal testing and release processes to continually improve the quality of the plugin’s codebase and how fast we can release updates, we also shipped three security fix releases to patch security issues in the plugin. We plan to be even more proactive in finding ways to improve the security of ACF in 2024.

In August, we raised the minimum required PHP version to 7.0 and the minimum required WordPress version to 5.8 to encourage users to update the sites and servers that run ACF.

Website Improvements

We introduced first-party Composer support for installing ACF PRO early in 2023. This was an exciting development for many of our users, but it turns out we were just getting started.

We’ve significantly improved our documentation for ACF Blocks, including an ongoing series of tutorials. If you’re new to ACF Blocks, get started with Create Your First ACF Block, and then move on to more advanced concepts like How to Use Block Locking and Using InnerBlocks and Parent/Child Relationships.

Prefer a video format? We’ve got you covered:

We’ve also introduced or updated tutorials on Conditional Logic, How to Create an Options Page, How to Query Posts by Custom Fields, and made other improvements to our documentation. This is an ongoing project, so please make sure to let us know where our documentation could be improved, and what new tutorials you’d like to see.

User Feedback and Community Growth

It was a big year for releases, but 2023 may have been even bigger in terms of direct feedback from users. Throughout the year, we’ve been committed to incorporating feedback and suggestions to ensure that the plugin continues to meet the needs of its users. We’ve actively engaged with the community, encouraging users to share their thoughts and ideas for future improvements.

The launch of ACF Chat Fridays, our regular open office hours session, has given us a great pipeline to direct user feedback on issues they’re experiencing, challenges they’ve solved, and what they’d like to see next. Make sure you’re in the loop and register for the nest session.

This year also saw the introduction of the first-ever annual ACF user survey, helping us to better understand how users are building WordPress sites with ACF, and how we can deliver what will help our users the most. Check out the results of the survey.

In addition, 2023 also marked the creation of our public feedback board, where users can post feature suggestions, vote on others, and track progress of suggestions.

WordCamps in Europe and North America

We like to attend WordCamps when we can, and 2023 saw us at some of the largest WordPress events in the world: WordCamp Europe and WordCamp US in 2023.

Liam Gladdy and I attended WordCamp Europe in Athens, Greece, along with Rob Stinson and other colleagues from WP Engine. We had a great time running product demos at the WP Engine sponsor booth, chatting with customers, and meeting with partners.

A great 2nd day at #WCEU with the @wp_acf team and the rest of the @wpengine folks pic.twitter.com/NtfFVn2MLl

— Iain Poulson (@polevaultweb) June 10, 2023

Matt Shaw and Anthony Burchell from the ACF development team, and Damon Cook from WP Engine DevRel attended WordCamp US in National Harbor Maryland, and reported a similar experience. We hope to see you at a WordCamp in 2024!

DE{CODE} 2023

Naturally, we were also present at what might be the world’s largest virtual WordPress event: DE{CODE} 2023. Hosted by WP Engine, DE{CODE} is a 100% virtual event dedicated to helping WordPress developers build smarter, maximize conversions, and modernize the user experience.

Our presentation, “7 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do With Advanced Custom Fields,” covered some of ACF’s lesser-known features, including some that were revealed to the public for the first time at DE{CODE} 2023. You can catch the whole presentation in the player below.

We’ll have more exciting news at DE{CODE} 2024, taking place March 19 (North America/APAC) and March 21 (EMEA), so make sure to mark your calendars and keep an eye on Twitter for news about the conference agenda.

Statistics

Let’s take a look at some of the stats from the past year.

Development

The engineering team has done another stellar job in 2023:

• Shipped 2 major releases
• Shipped 14 minor releases, release candidates, and betas
• Pushed 2,211 commits of code (+12% from 2022)

Support

The support team has always been a big part of ACF, and they continued to do a great job in 2023:

• Answered a total of 9,899 tickets
• Sent a total of 19,567 replies
• An average of 825 tickets per month
• Average customer satisfaction score of 92.5%

Community Engagement Stats

• Held 19 sessions of ACF Chat Fridays
• Surveyed 2,031 users in our first annual survey
• Published 76 blog posts, tutorials, and updated docs
• Held 9 WP Engine Builder sessions dedicated to ACF

Usage

The free version of ACF is at 2 million+ installs, with WordPress.org reporting that over 46% of them are running ACF 6.2:

Let’s have a look at data about sites that activated ACF PRO in 2023:

ACF Major Version

WordPress Version

PHP Version

What’s Ahead in 2024?

Our first major release of 2024, ACF 6.3, will focus on improvements and enhancements to ACF Blocks. The first of these is introducing field validation for fields contained within ACF Blocks. Many ACF fields allow you to set parameters for the input they will accept, and reject any input that falls outside those parameters. Historically, this validation wasn’t available for fields included in ACF Blocks. This will change with the release of ACF 6.3.

The second new feature for ACF 6.3 involves how field data is saved in ACF Blocks. When you create an ACF Block and add content to it in the content editor, the field data in that block is saved the same way WordPress saves the rest of the block editor information: to the post content column in the post table. However, some users would prefer to store the field data from their ACF Blocks in post meta, like classic ACF fields do. We’re working on a way to give you control over where that field data is saved when you create the block. This should make it easier to access this data for sorting and querying.

That’s the relatively near future. Looking further ahead for 2024, we’re working on a way for folks building headless WordPress sites or decoupled front end components to skip the PHP template stage when creating ACF Blocks. ACF is widely used in headless builds, so we’re examining ways to define paths to front end components in block.json, and then use the same component in the editor to show a preview of the block.

We’re constantly improving the UI and UX of ACF Blocks to make editing blocks as native as possible, and 2024 should have some enhancements along those lines. This is a long-term project, but we’re hopeful that editing ACF Blocks will be no different to core blocks.

We’re also planning enhancements to conditional logic for relational field types, Flexible Content field layouts, and much more. Make sure to sign up for our mailing list for the latest news.

Thanks

I’d like to thank the entire ACF team and everyone else at WP Engine for making these achievements possible in 2023, and ensuring we’ll continue to build on that success throughout 2024.

As always, my biggest thanks are reserved for our users. We asked for your feedback, and you delivered, helping to ensure that ACF continues to meet your needs. The development process is enriched and improved because of your participation.

What else would you like to see from ACF as we move forward into 2024? Let me know in the comments.

The post ACF 2023 Year in Review: Beyond Custom Fields appeared first on ACF.