Great video addressing an important question. I’ve used both ACF and JetEngine, even together. I think for most projects, JetEngine would rule the world, if Crocoblock team learned how to write proper documentation. They tend to answer the question “how” (to use the feature), without addressing the “why” (you want to use this feature) and the “what” (it does). They say a few things about each tree, without helping me with the big picture of navigating the forrest. That leaves a lot of the potential (and sales) of an otherwise nicely synced toolbox on the table.
Spot on Arno! I've always said when you're teaching a concept, explain the why and then the how. Once you understand what you're going to achieve, you have an easier time of getting to grips with how to achieve it.
Paul, I watched this video again (I mentioned in a prior post that I refer to your videos often) and learned quite a bit watching a second time. It is very helpful to hear this message every now and then to reinforce the concept that there are different tools to get the job completed. I typically try and use the tools that I already "own" to solve the problem but need to remember that there are other tools in the toolshed. Thank you for creating this video.
Paul, I love how your doggie even gets a chance to voice an opinion! I really need to dedicate a part of my work week (like at least a half-day) towards learning new techniques. Three cheers to you for taking the time to teach these technologies!
Hum i was a fan of ACF but for my needs here are the two combinaison: CPT UI + ACF + ELE CUSTOM SKIN + WP FACET + ELEMENTOR PRO versus JetEngine + JetSmartfilter + ELEMENTOR PRO ... i was really happy to see how easy i could create a cpt, define filter, create my loop/grid/listing, applying filter on a page where the grid has been put ... i'm pretty sure the other 3rd parties combinaision would be better if a had to compare 40k classifieds but for comparing 50 credit cards Crocoblock do the job
I concur. Too many plugins need for my use case to use ACF. JetEngine contains everything. The ability to create and style add/edit front end forms for custom post types with repeaters is a great feature that is all contained in one plugin.
Thanks for this video and so many others on using ACF(etc) and Jet, comparing the two. I'm trying Jet (off your affiliate link), and the very first thing I'm wondering about is performance. I haven't heard you make any statements about performance, or comparing ACF versus Jet performance. After getting Jet, I immediately installed the BailRento demo site. The performance is worryingly slow. Would an ACF (and companions) be any faster? You've done your Real Estate demo on both toolsets. Can you say anything about performance, please? Thanks.
Hi, Paul! It's me, Shelley. I SECOND the pinned posters comment,! You can't understand how priceless these teachings are to us! So many of us would be SO LOST without you! And your such a great teacher. You ARE THE MAN! That said, THANK YOU for putting this up for me SO QUICKLY! Like I told you, I've been watching the tuts you already have up all over again, and I am FINALLY getting my head around it! I still need to watch ALL your DASHBOARD tuts over, so I can get a better handle on my options for that. However, I have a multi site set up, so I am wanting to have a custom dashboard for my users, based on user roles. For instance, authors would have one dashboard, and moderators would have a different dashboard. That's a lousy example, but I'm sure you get the picture. Right now, I have NO IDEA how to do that AND make sure they land on the right dashboard when they log in. I know there HAS to be several people using multi site, especially the BIG, T.V. networks and all, yet there is SO VERY LITTLE documentation or instruction out there tailored to multi site users. The one site that was DEDICATED and had SOME TRULY AWESOME plugins for just that, has now changed to just hosting and RETIRED all the plugins!!! So, anyway, back to the dashboard topic. I'd really like to do something just a little bit different on mine, and honestly, I wouldn't look to anyone else to teach me how to pull it off. Specifically, instead of the standard dashboard widgets, I would like to have a tabbed interface on the dashboard that executes each option inside of it when clicked. For example, say one tab says, "Add New Post", when clicked, I would like the post form to open right inside that tab, instead of a different page on the dashboard. Also, it's crucial for my users to have a tab called, "My Posts". However, when they click on that, I don't want their posts to be in the standard list form. Rather, I would like them to appear just as they would on the standard archive page, with the thumbnail and excerpt showing along with EDIT in the right hand corner. I know that this might be a lot to ask, but I hope it's not too tall of an order. At the very least, it's something VERY DIFFERENT. Therefore, I think an in depth JE dashboard tutorial such as this, is something other users might really enjoy and benefit from. Again, thank you SO MUCH for ALL the wonderful tutorials you put out for us! We appreciate you VERY MUCH! I hope you will consider doing this tutorial, cuz I am SO looking forward to seeing it! Thank You, Sir!
Or now, just GLANCING at ACF, maybe it would be easier to do that kind of dashboard board with that? I don't know. So, that begs the question ... Can you use one to build the dashboard and the other for everything else? Arrrgggh .... I'm SO CONFUSED!
Thanks Paul - I assumed the answer would be.. "it depends", and it really does, but you've presented some of the key points as to what it depends on. I personally really like JetEngine but it takes HOURS to figure out some of the most simple stuff. I've even considered making my own RUclips Channel to help explain all the little undocumented things I've learned, but I'll leave that to the pros like you :) ... as always, thank you so much for all your hard work.
Share away my good man. We all want to learn to get more out of these tools and there is room enough for all of us. If you'd rather keep things a little more low key, maybe share some of your knowledge in the WPCrue Facebook group. :)
Thanks a lot for this video! I've been using ACF for 7+ years and decided to use Jet Engine for a specific project. I was losing my mind, searching for the PHP functions to get the Jet Engine meta values. I still think Jet Engine is really powerful (listings are amazing), and I just might use them both.
Thank you you for putting your hard work and well explained videos. You are always one step forward. JetEngine and ACF a movie about love & hate. I'm using JetEngine and I hope they improve it. I haven't used ACF just because I had to use third parties plugins to have custom post types and others. Thank you and keep it up with your videos!
Wow, now I see why you wanted to avoid this comparison. During the video I flipped back and forth several times on what would be best for my work. I decided on ACF primarily because the number of tutorials you already have on it. However, as things continue evolve - I could imagine JetEngine eventually becoming my choice. Thanks for tackling such a complex topic
I cannot compare against ACF but against Toolset JetEngine is far behind in many aspects. I think that the Crocoblock team should focus more on refining the product, relationships being one but not the worst, the repeater field must be a nightmare for beginners. Also, Elementor standard field types like number and color picker fields, as of last time I checked, are not integrated into Elemantor. In fact, number fields do not exist at all, I even opened a ticket about that that got closed. Toolset has that functionality for a long time. JetEnjine is clunky, and some times frustrating but the suite makes sense, so I use it, mostly because I have it and it does not cost me more. All that to say thanks for another good video.
Couldn't agree more. Some of the most important aspects don't feel fully thought out, but instead, included to compete with the likes of Toolset and ACF, etc. Refinement, focus and streamlining are the top things that JE could benefit from as could many of its users.
Another great video Paul. I agree 100%. I use both and without doubt ACF is far easier to use. There has been a lot of hard work gone into JetEngine but I think they fall very short on usability (not intuitive) and their documentation. I think they would be far better to pay someone like yourself to explain their plugin as they just make too many assumptions and in many cases it just doesn’t make sense. Frustrating, as they have so much potential!!
I'd have to agree with you wholeheartedly! The tool has such great potential (in a lot of aspects lives up to and often exceeds my expectations), but would certainly benefit from some refinement before simply adding more bells and whistles.
I feel like documentation for Wordpress as a whole has a major gap between using the basic drag and drop features and using the more advanced tools which involve coding and/or scripting. I came to Wordpress about 18 months ago after 20+ years of hand coding with PHP and MySQL. Making the transition has been very frustrating. For one thing, the answer for almost anything you want to do is "there's a plug-in for that", which can drive up costs very quickly. Then when it comes to understanding how to use functions and code, it's difficult to find examples that don't assume you already know where to put this function or use that hook. When it comes to ACF more specifically, I've been pretty frustrated with the lack of documentation on how to query, as well as the lack of sorting options within Elementor. Being accustomed to getting results through SQL, it's been quite frustrating to find that it's not particularly easy to sort on two (or more) columns, or even to do alpha sorts. But sorting by post date or comment count is super easy - great if that's the kind of data your webstie runs on.
Thanks, very helpfull. Just start with Jet Engine and if I am correct I see another big difference. With Jet Engine it looks like I have to rewrite or copy all my existing posts into Jet Engine while ACF puts the fields in the normal Wordpress posts which already exists.
Hi Paul, as always, a helpful and interesting video! Apart from the fact that your many tutorials on the whole "dynamic stuff" are always super helpful and - at least for me as a non-native english speaking person - always very easy to understand, I like your "short" videos about new plugins or comparisons between different plugins very much! I also do not understand why the Crocoblock people are not able to create understandable and logically structured tutorials and instructions for their plugins - it's not rocket science anymore in our days!?! They have such powerful tools and plugins and in my opinion also really good ideas, but apparently only programmers work there and they are missing people who understand that non-programmers must also be able to use und to understand their tools! (And I used to program a lot myself and still hardly understand their "logic" in their plugins or in their tutorials ...) It's their own fault, when they are not given as much attention - even by third-party developers - as for instance ACF and when nobody knows what their tools can do. Too bad, because I find the Crocoblock plugins very interesting in terms of price, but what does that do for me if I can't use the tools because I just don't know how and I can't get this information because it doesn't exist!? I hope that the people at dynamic.ooo/ don't make the same mistakes with their "Dynamic Content for Elementor"-stuff and hopefully "hire" you for a few more tutorials, because they also have lots of very cool tools and widgets, but there is often no search for tutorials! Carry on as before with your videos about all the "dynamic stuff", Paul, and stay healthy! Greetings from good old germany, Swen
Hey Swen, hi to Germany and I hope you're staying safe and well over there too. It's certainly scary times at the moment! You make a very valid point. I think if they spent a little more time polishing and simplifying some of the core features on offer with JetEngine it could become an amazing tool and beat out a lot of the competition, especially when working with Elementor and Gutenberg. Also, if they invested in the quality of their documentation and training material, it could be an amazing resource and get way more users hoping on board. Maybe this is something they will look into, but I'm not 100% certain that will be the case. With regards to Dynamic Content for Elementor, I hope they'll continue to invest in creating more training content as I'd like to believe that since I started creating content for them, the interest has increased in the plugin (which is super powerful with many unique features). Only time will tell I guess. :)
Besides those two choices, there are also Meta Box and Toolset from which to choose. Personally, I believe Meta Box is the best of the four because it has more options and is easier to use overall.
You're right, there are other similar products out there. But the purpose for this video was to answer the question I get asked a lot and not to really address the whole market. 😁👍
Your videos on ACF has been very supportive. Recently I saw a crocoblock tutorial on how to add booking functionality to your site. Can that be done using ACF with another form builder?
8:19 so what you are suggesting is that for maximum features and ease of use create the metafields with acf along with jet engine functionalities then use dynamic content/anywhere elementor plugin for showing those contents? (all that is around680 usd pre tax if you're wondering)
No, I'm not suggesting you do it. I'm simply stating that you CAN use JetEngine alongside ACF. However, this video is now over a year old and a lot has changed with JetEngine and this comparison is very much out of date.
@@WPTuts thanks for your quick response. Im just starting to creat dynamic features for my websites and im a bit lost on what to choose. Would you be making a updated video on this topic? im sure a lot of people are in the same boat as me.
I keep looking at Jet Engine as I like the way it's styled. But for most sites I can make what I need with ACF for free. Maybe if they do an offer sometime on App Sumo I may pick it up.
Awesome thank you, Paul! I do own all of them ( crocoblocks, act, and dynamic content ) and yes you are totally correct by saying it takes me all day to figure out a feature or an action with jet elements for my woo commerce shop. I often send 1 to 2 tickets to support a night. I feel like switching to ACF and dynamic content but would you say it’s easier to just use the crocoblocks suite for woo commerce? Or Is the ACF / dynamic content pair worth the switch for easier and faster to build something with a better community, documentation, and support? Oh and thank you so much for your steady flow of videos, very informative, thanks, Paul.
My knowledge of WooCommerce integration isn't all that strong, so I wouldn't like to point you in the wrong direction, but ACF and Dynamic Content for Elementor is a pretty formidable combo when it comes to dynamic websites and Elementor Pro. Certainly worth investigating for sure.
Hie Paul, is it possible that you would make a booking tutorial with JetBooking plugin... that would be very helpful with the Knowledge you are sharing here
Thank you so much for your very informative videos. I've learned so much from them. I've been trying to find a plugin that will allow me to display multiple custom fields closely together on one line - for example "first-name last-name" or "city, state zipcode". I don't want to have to mess with PHP to do it. Any recommendations?
Another great video Paul - really appreciate the professionalism you display in your teaching. Is there anything that either of these plugins can do that can't be done in Toolset?
It would really depend on how you intend to use them. Toolset is a great plugin, but is now geared towards Gutenberg and I think it has a slightly steeper learning curve. ACF is a great plugin with a ton of 3rd party options to expand what can be done with it. Great integration with page builders and Gutenberg and a lot of tutorials online to get you started. JetEngine is heavily focused on Elementor and to a smaller extent, Gutenberg but has a lot of functionality out of the box. For example, custom listings, frontend forms, profile tools and comprehensive Elementor integration. So, it would really come down to your use case and the tools you like to use when working with WordPress. I hope that helps Rob?
@@WPTuts Thanks for the detailed reply. In the short term I need to develop a website that sells tickets for railway tours so am looking to use WooCommerce. The design for both archive and single product pages is totally custom so I have been researching tools that could help. For example the single product page will need a number of custom fields in addition to the WooCommerce out of the box fields that are available. I know HTML and CSS but very little PHP so Toolset looks like a good option as it will allow me to create custom fields and then use Gutenberg to create specific templates for the single product/archive pages. I can also create relationships between certain trains for example to link to other tours that are related to that particular train. I already own ACF Pro and have used it on previous builds but the concept of outputting fields in templates required more hand coding than I liked to be honest. I have never used Elementor - I have thought about using it but was unsure of the flexibility it would offer in designing templates for WooCommerce pages - I didn't want to restrict my design options.
@@robclarke2958 I'd say you should be able to do all that with ACF Pro and Elementor Pro and probably have more flexibility than Gutenberg will provide. Have a look on my channel and search for ACF and WooCommerce. I did a video a while back that linked the 2. It may shed some light on the process.
Another amazing video, Paul! I'm glad you touched on using JetEngine in conjunction with ACF Pro. I have been doing this and have had no problems. However, I'm currently working on a project and using the JetEngine Profile Builder to manage CPTs from the front-end. I've noticed that I can use ACF Pro to show a selection for taxonomy, but I haven't been able to do this in JetEngine. Also, when you select a taxonomy from the selection box in ACF Pro it also sets the taxonomy meta which is really nice.
I've noticed a trend with Crocoblock products. The initial release (of a new plugin or a major feature) is generally very buggy, limited and not always that well thought out. They do refine and after a couple of revisions, it gets much better. I'm hoping that the Profile Builder will be one such area, as compared to the likes of ACF Frontend Forms (Pro and free), it is way behind. Not very intuitive, slow and pretty clunky. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice at this point in time.
Thanks for the thorough and well articulated tutorials which are helping me a lot with my new endeavor. I just used your affiliate link to purchase elementor pro. I really enjoy your tutorials especially the long ones with real world example. I'm working on creating an LMS and Travel themes.
I would go for AFC Pro, Jet Engine is good but it make my site SOOOOOO slow, loading time is over 3 minuets with Jet and with AFC it is only 34 sec. So 5 stars for AFC Pro.
Ditto on Andres' comment. I am planning out two long term projects and am "familiar" with both platforms. I am leaning towards JetEngine as I really enjoy the suite of Crocoblock plugins. Andres, I started a Facebook group in hopes of sharing tips and feedback, I would love to get it going. (facebook.com/groups/857390278018110). Paul, love your always informative videos. I'll keep coming back. Cheers!
Amazing work Gregg, yeah, I am also leaning on Crocoblocks, ACF free version itself does a lot, but as Paul said, beside of the meta-fields, its just stop there. However at this moment I haven't used Croco that much so that is why Im still analyzing.
Jet engine is so powerful. I use form more than I think I will. But the doccuments and tutorials are lack the user understanding. They skip the hardest part all the times. And it's super painful to learn everything by yourself.
Lolirado Topper 100% - so much potential they just can’t seem to communicate how to use the plugin. I would imagine they’ve got a lot of sales (as they offer great value) but in the same breath it just doesn’t get used.
Great Video Paul. Super useful comments. I started knowing about Jet Engine through your videos. I super hope that it evolves to be easier to make more complex sites without coding. I wish they make the Repeater and Relationships easier to setup...before releasing new “widgets” and “functions” they seem to also be offering. They really have a chance here...To differentiate themselves while allowing the same functionality. ACF is nice but in my opinion...it’s geared towards coders..I have a feeling that people who use Elementor use it because they don’t want to code...they want to design. So building repeaters and relationships should be made super easy. Go Jet Engine.
@@henriquemonnerat5199 I can honestly say that they really need to up their game to come close to the ease and flexibility of ACF with either Anywhere Elementor Pro or Dynamic Content for Elementor, especially when it comes to repeater regions and relationships. With the above combo, you could have a relationship or repeater setup and integrated into your theme templates (via Elementor Pro) in a few minutes. I'd spend that time just trying to remember in what order I needed to do the same things with JE. 😂 JE has a lot of potential, but as you said, they need to refine it and not keep adding new half baked features.
It's like you read my mind. I am analizing which one to use.
Just wanted to let you know that you are awesome for replying to all these comments!
Christiaantjahhh thank you. 👍
Great video addressing an important question. I’ve used both ACF and JetEngine, even together. I think for most projects, JetEngine would rule the world, if Crocoblock team learned how to write proper documentation. They tend to answer the question “how” (to use the feature), without addressing the “why” (you want to use this feature) and the “what” (it does). They say a few things about each tree, without helping me with the big picture of navigating the forrest. That leaves a lot of the potential (and sales) of an otherwise nicely synced toolbox on the table.
Spot on Arno! I've always said when you're teaching a concept, explain the why and then the how. Once you understand what you're going to achieve, you have an easier time of getting to grips with how to achieve it.
I use both, and up till now it is quite a powerful combination.
Paul, I watched this video again (I mentioned in a prior post that I refer to your videos often) and learned quite a bit watching a second time. It is very helpful to hear this message every now and then to reinforce the concept that there are different tools to get the job completed. I typically try and use the tools that I already "own" to solve the problem but need to remember that there are other tools in the toolshed. Thank you for creating this video.
Paul, I love how your doggie even gets a chance to voice an opinion!
I really need to dedicate a part of my work week (like at least a half-day) towards learning new techniques. Three cheers to you for taking the time to teach these technologies!
Lol, he was a right vocal bugger when I was recording this yesterday.. lol
Hum i was a fan of ACF but for my needs here are the two combinaison: CPT UI + ACF + ELE CUSTOM SKIN + WP FACET + ELEMENTOR PRO versus JetEngine + JetSmartfilter + ELEMENTOR PRO ... i was really happy to see how easy i could create a cpt, define filter, create my loop/grid/listing, applying filter on a page where the grid has been put ... i'm pretty sure the other 3rd parties combinaision would be better if a had to compare 40k classifieds but for comparing 50 credit cards Crocoblock do the job
I concur. Too many plugins need for my use case to use ACF. JetEngine contains everything. The ability to create and style add/edit front end forms for custom post types with repeaters is a great feature that is all contained in one plugin.
COuldnt agree more, found myself having multiple plugins when JetEngine is an all in one solution.
Thanks for this video and so many others on using ACF(etc) and Jet, comparing the two. I'm trying Jet (off your affiliate link), and the very first thing I'm wondering about is performance. I haven't heard you make any statements about performance, or comparing ACF versus Jet performance. After getting Jet, I immediately installed the BailRento demo site. The performance is worryingly slow. Would an ACF (and companions) be any faster? You've done your Real Estate demo on both toolsets. Can you say anything about performance, please? Thanks.
JetEngine performance is horrible...SmartFilters take 5+ seconds to complete filtering when working with only 20-30 posts.
Hi, Paul! It's me, Shelley. I SECOND the pinned posters comment,! You can't understand how priceless these teachings are to us! So many of us would be SO LOST without you! And your such a great teacher. You ARE THE MAN! That said, THANK YOU for putting this up for me SO QUICKLY! Like I told you, I've been watching the tuts you already have up all over again, and I am FINALLY getting my head around it! I still need to watch ALL your DASHBOARD tuts over, so I can get a better handle on my options for that. However, I have a multi site set up, so I am wanting to have a custom dashboard for my users, based on user roles. For instance, authors would have one dashboard, and moderators would have a different dashboard. That's a lousy example, but I'm sure you get the picture. Right now, I have NO IDEA how to do that AND make sure they land on the right dashboard when they log in. I know there HAS to be several people using multi site, especially the BIG, T.V. networks and all, yet there is SO VERY LITTLE documentation or instruction out there tailored to multi site users. The one site that was DEDICATED and had SOME TRULY AWESOME plugins for just that, has now changed to just hosting and RETIRED all the plugins!!! So, anyway, back to the dashboard topic. I'd really like to do something just a little bit different on mine, and honestly, I wouldn't look to anyone else to teach me how to pull it off. Specifically, instead of the standard dashboard widgets, I would like to have a tabbed interface on the dashboard that executes each option inside of it when clicked. For example, say one tab says, "Add New Post", when clicked, I would like the post form to open right inside that tab, instead of a different page on the dashboard. Also, it's crucial for my users to have a tab called, "My Posts". However, when they click on that, I don't want their posts to be in the standard list form. Rather, I would like them to appear just as they would on the standard archive page, with the thumbnail and excerpt showing along with EDIT in the right hand corner. I know that this might be a lot to ask, but I hope it's not too tall of an order. At the very least, it's something VERY DIFFERENT. Therefore, I think an in depth JE dashboard tutorial such as this, is something other users might really enjoy and benefit from. Again, thank you SO MUCH for ALL the wonderful tutorials you put out for us! We appreciate you VERY MUCH! I hope you will consider doing this tutorial, cuz I am SO looking forward to seeing it! Thank You, Sir!
Or now, just GLANCING at ACF, maybe it would be easier to do that kind of dashboard board with that? I don't know. So, that begs the question ... Can you use one to build the dashboard and the other for everything else? Arrrgggh .... I'm SO CONFUSED!
Paul, I really like your series of RUclips presentations. I learn a lot from each and refer back to them often. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Paul - I assumed the answer would be.. "it depends", and it really does, but you've presented some of the key points as to what it depends on. I personally really like JetEngine but it takes HOURS to figure out some of the most simple stuff. I've even considered making my own RUclips Channel to help explain all the little undocumented things I've learned, but I'll leave that to the pros like you :) ... as always, thank you so much for all your hard work.
Share away my good man. We all want to learn to get more out of these tools and there is room enough for all of us.
If you'd rather keep things a little more low key, maybe share some of your knowledge in the WPCrue Facebook group. :)
Thanks a lot for this video! I've been using ACF for 7+ years and decided to use Jet Engine for a specific project. I was losing my mind, searching for the PHP functions to get the Jet Engine meta values. I still think Jet Engine is really powerful (listings are amazing), and I just might use them both.
Thank you you for putting your hard work and well explained videos. You are always one step forward. JetEngine and ACF a movie about love & hate. I'm using JetEngine and I hope they improve it. I haven't used ACF just because I had to use third parties plugins to have custom post types and others. Thank you and keep it up with your videos!
Thank you so much Paul! As you said, I still may not know whats best for me but at least I know where to start diggning. Thanks!
It would also be interesting to hear your thoughts on a comparison with pods as well
Thanks for this very detailed comparison. You absolutely helped me in my decision for the future.
Wow, now I see why you wanted to avoid this comparison. During the video I flipped back and forth several times on what would be best for my work. I decided on ACF primarily because the number of tutorials you already have on it. However, as things continue evolve - I could imagine JetEngine eventually becoming my choice. Thanks for tackling such a complex topic
CPU resources used:
33% ACF Pro + 1,35% CPT UI
14% JetEngine
I cannot compare against ACF but against Toolset JetEngine is far behind in many aspects. I think that the Crocoblock team should focus more on refining the product, relationships being one but not the worst, the repeater field must be a nightmare for beginners. Also, Elementor standard field types like number and color picker fields, as of last time I checked, are not integrated into Elemantor. In fact, number fields do not exist at all, I even opened a ticket about that that got closed. Toolset has that functionality for a long time. JetEnjine is clunky, and some times frustrating but the suite makes sense, so I use it, mostly because I have it and it does not cost me more.
All that to say thanks for another good video.
Couldn't agree more. Some of the most important aspects don't feel fully thought out, but instead, included to compete with the likes of Toolset and ACF, etc.
Refinement, focus and streamlining are the top things that JE could benefit from as could many of its users.
Another great video Paul. I agree 100%. I use both and without doubt ACF is far easier to use. There has been a lot of hard work gone into JetEngine but I think they fall very short on usability (not intuitive) and their documentation. I think they would be far better to pay someone like yourself to explain their plugin as they just make too many assumptions and in many cases it just doesn’t make sense. Frustrating, as they have so much potential!!
I'd have to agree with you wholeheartedly! The tool has such great potential (in a lot of aspects lives up to and often exceeds my expectations), but would certainly benefit from some refinement before simply adding more bells and whistles.
I feel like documentation for Wordpress as a whole has a major gap between using the basic drag and drop features and using the more advanced tools which involve coding and/or scripting. I came to Wordpress about 18 months ago after 20+ years of hand coding with PHP and MySQL. Making the transition has been very frustrating. For one thing, the answer for almost anything you want to do is "there's a plug-in for that", which can drive up costs very quickly. Then when it comes to understanding how to use functions and code, it's difficult to find examples that don't assume you already know where to put this function or use that hook.
When it comes to ACF more specifically, I've been pretty frustrated with the lack of documentation on how to query, as well as the lack of sorting options within Elementor. Being accustomed to getting results through SQL, it's been quite frustrating to find that it's not particularly easy to sort on two (or more) columns, or even to do alpha sorts. But sorting by post date or comment count is super easy - great if that's the kind of data your webstie runs on.
Thanks, very helpfull. Just start with Jet Engine and if I am correct I see another big difference. With Jet Engine it looks like I have to rewrite or copy all my existing posts into Jet Engine while ACF puts the fields in the normal Wordpress posts which already exists.
I'm Brazilian and not fluent, but I can understand very well your pronounce. Also, I love your content, keep it up with the good job.
Hi Paul,
as always, a helpful and interesting video!
Apart from the fact that your many tutorials on the whole "dynamic stuff" are always super helpful and - at least for me as a non-native english speaking person - always very easy to understand, I like your "short" videos about new plugins or comparisons between different plugins very much!
I also do not understand why the Crocoblock people are not able to create understandable and logically structured tutorials and instructions for their plugins - it's not rocket science anymore in our days!?! They have such powerful tools and plugins and in my opinion also really good ideas, but apparently only programmers work there and they are missing people who understand that non-programmers must also be able to use und to understand their tools! (And I used to program a lot myself and still hardly understand their "logic" in their plugins or in their tutorials ...)
It's their own fault, when they are not given as much attention - even by third-party developers - as for instance ACF and when nobody knows what their tools can do. Too bad, because I find the Crocoblock plugins very interesting in terms of price, but what does that do for me if I can't use the tools because I just don't know how and I can't get this information because it doesn't exist!?
I hope that the people at dynamic.ooo/ don't make the same mistakes with their "Dynamic Content for Elementor"-stuff and hopefully "hire" you for a few more tutorials, because they also have lots of very cool tools and widgets, but there is often no search for tutorials!
Carry on as before with your videos about all the "dynamic stuff", Paul, and stay healthy!
Greetings from good old germany,
Swen
Hey Swen, hi to Germany and I hope you're staying safe and well over there too. It's certainly scary times at the moment!
You make a very valid point. I think if they spent a little more time polishing and simplifying some of the core features on offer with JetEngine it could become an amazing tool and beat out a lot of the competition, especially when working with Elementor and Gutenberg.
Also, if they invested in the quality of their documentation and training material, it could be an amazing resource and get way more users hoping on board.
Maybe this is something they will look into, but I'm not 100% certain that will be the case.
With regards to Dynamic Content for Elementor, I hope they'll continue to invest in creating more training content as I'd like to believe that since I started creating content for them, the interest has increased in the plugin (which is super powerful with many unique features).
Only time will tell I guess. :)
Besides those two choices, there are also Meta Box and Toolset from which to choose.
Personally, I believe Meta Box is the best of the four because it has more options and is easier to use overall.
You're right, there are other similar products out there. But the purpose for this video was to answer the question I get asked a lot and not to really address the whole market. 😁👍
More videos like this one!!! Comparisons are so valuable. I absolutely love your videos! Thank you teacher!
Your videos on ACF has been very supportive.
Recently I saw a crocoblock tutorial on how to add booking functionality to your site. Can that be done using ACF with another form builder?
Hi Paul, Please do a deep comparison between JetEngine vs Toolset as well.
8:19 so what you are suggesting is that for maximum features and ease of use create the metafields with acf along with jet engine functionalities then use dynamic content/anywhere elementor plugin for showing those contents? (all that is around680 usd pre tax if you're wondering)
No, I'm not suggesting you do it. I'm simply stating that you CAN use JetEngine alongside ACF.
However, this video is now over a year old and a lot has changed with JetEngine and this comparison is very much out of date.
@@WPTuts thanks for your quick response.
Im just starting to creat dynamic features for my websites and im a bit lost on what to choose.
Would you be making a updated video on this topic? im sure a lot of people are in the same boat as me.
Very insightful. Exactly what I was looking for. Subscribed and Thanks.
Great video. You just help me make up my mind about my direction with ACF and Jetengine. Thank you
Great to hear this has helped Yasien! :0)
I love ACF pro, but I'm wanting to play with Jet when I get the funds and IF my current site can't be built with ACF alone.
I keep looking at Jet Engine as I like the way it's styled. But for most sites I can make what I need with ACF for free. Maybe if they do an offer sometime on App Sumo I may pick it up.
Awesome thank you, Paul! I do own all of them ( crocoblocks, act, and dynamic content ) and yes you are totally correct by saying it takes me all day to figure out a feature or an action with jet elements for my woo commerce shop. I often send 1 to 2 tickets to support a night. I feel like switching to ACF and dynamic content but would you say it’s easier to just use the crocoblocks suite for woo commerce? Or Is the ACF / dynamic content pair worth the switch for easier and faster to build something with a better community, documentation, and support? Oh and thank you so much for your steady flow of videos, very informative, thanks, Paul.
My knowledge of WooCommerce integration isn't all that strong, so I wouldn't like to point you in the wrong direction, but ACF and Dynamic Content for Elementor is a pretty formidable combo when it comes to dynamic websites and Elementor Pro. Certainly worth investigating for sure.
Hie Paul, is it possible that you would make a booking tutorial with JetBooking plugin... that would be very helpful with the Knowledge you are sharing here
Thank you so much for your very informative videos. I've learned so much from them. I've been trying to find a plugin that will allow me to display multiple custom fields closely together on one line - for example "first-name last-name" or "city, state zipcode". I don't want to have to mess with PHP to do it. Any recommendations?
what is the difference in terms of page speed?
Another great video Paul - really appreciate the professionalism you display in your teaching. Is there anything that either of these plugins can do that can't be done in Toolset?
It would really depend on how you intend to use them. Toolset is a great plugin, but is now geared towards Gutenberg and I think it has a slightly steeper learning curve.
ACF is a great plugin with a ton of 3rd party options to expand what can be done with it. Great integration with page builders and Gutenberg and a lot of tutorials online to get you started.
JetEngine is heavily focused on Elementor and to a smaller extent, Gutenberg but has a lot of functionality out of the box. For example, custom listings, frontend forms, profile tools and comprehensive Elementor integration.
So, it would really come down to your use case and the tools you like to use when working with WordPress.
I hope that helps Rob?
@@WPTuts Thanks for the detailed reply. In the short term I need to develop a website that sells tickets for railway tours so am looking to use WooCommerce. The design for both archive and single product pages is totally custom so I have been researching tools that could help. For example the single product page will need a number of custom fields in addition to the WooCommerce out of the box fields that are available.
I know HTML and CSS but very little PHP so Toolset looks like a good option as it will allow me to create custom fields and then use Gutenberg to create specific templates for the single product/archive pages. I can also create relationships between certain trains for example to link to other tours that are related to that particular train. I already own ACF Pro and have used it on previous builds but the concept of outputting fields in templates required more hand coding than I liked to be honest. I have never used Elementor - I have thought about using it but was unsure of the flexibility it would offer in designing templates for WooCommerce pages - I didn't want to restrict my design options.
@@robclarke2958 I'd say you should be able to do all that with ACF Pro and Elementor Pro and probably have more flexibility than Gutenberg will provide.
Have a look on my channel and search for ACF and WooCommerce. I did a video a while back that linked the 2.
It may shed some light on the process.
Another amazing video, Paul! I'm glad you touched on using JetEngine in conjunction with ACF Pro. I have been doing this and have had no problems. However, I'm currently working on a project and using the JetEngine Profile Builder to manage CPTs from the front-end. I've noticed that I can use ACF Pro to show a selection for taxonomy, but I haven't been able to do this in JetEngine. Also, when you select a taxonomy from the selection box in ACF Pro it also sets the taxonomy meta which is really nice.
I've noticed a trend with Crocoblock products. The initial release (of a new plugin or a major feature) is generally very buggy, limited and not always that well thought out. They do refine and after a couple of revisions, it gets much better.
I'm hoping that the Profile Builder will be one such area, as compared to the likes of ACF Frontend Forms (Pro and free), it is way behind. Not very intuitive, slow and pretty clunky. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice at this point in time.
@@WPTuts Thank you for the honest feedback. I will start investing more time into using ACF Pro and will give ACF Frontend Forms a shot.
can JetEngine create custom fields
Hey Paul! What's the name of that song in the background? Sounds cool hehe
To me I personally prefer ACF
Thank you so much Paul, your advice is truly appreciated
I was waiting for this video 👍👍
Thanks for the thorough and well articulated tutorials which are helping me a lot with my new endeavor. I just used your affiliate link to purchase elementor pro. I really enjoy your tutorials especially the long ones with real world example. I'm working on creating an LMS and Travel themes.
Thanks Paul! Another great video!
Bom comparativo! Obrigado!
HI Paul, do you know if there is a way (directly via jet engine or a plugin) to convert acf fields groups in jetengine fields groups ?
I don't believe so. I think they follow a different structure.
I would go for AFC Pro, Jet Engine is good but it make my site SOOOOOO slow, loading time is over 3 minuets with Jet and with AFC it is only 34 sec. So 5 stars for AFC Pro.
Alex Hoy yes. Only 34 sec with AFC PRO
I do not have SQL knowledge and relationships are crucial for learning ACF. Please can you make a relationships centered video ?
I've already created a couple on ACF and JetEngine - ruclips.net/user/ipixeltutorialssearch?view_as=subscriber&query=relationship
Ditto on Andres' comment. I am planning out two long term projects and am "familiar" with both platforms. I am leaning towards JetEngine as I really enjoy the suite of Crocoblock plugins. Andres, I started a Facebook group in hopes of sharing tips and feedback, I would love to get it going. (facebook.com/groups/857390278018110). Paul, love your always informative videos. I'll keep coming back. Cheers!
Amazing work Gregg, yeah, I am also leaning on Crocoblocks, ACF free version itself does a lot, but as Paul said, beside of the meta-fields, its just stop there. However at this moment I haven't used Croco that much so that is why Im still analyzing.
Jet engine is so powerful.
I use form more than I think I will.
But the doccuments and tutorials are lack the user understanding. They skip the hardest part all the times. And it's super painful to learn everything by yourself.
Lolirado Topper 100% - so much potential they just can’t seem to communicate how to use the plugin. I would imagine they’ve got a lot of sales (as they offer great value) but in the same breath it just doesn’t get used.
Great Video Paul. Super useful comments. I started knowing about Jet Engine through your videos. I super hope that it evolves to be easier to make more complex sites without coding. I wish they make the Repeater and Relationships easier to setup...before releasing new “widgets” and “functions” they seem to also be offering. They really have a chance here...To differentiate themselves while allowing the same functionality. ACF is nice but in my opinion...it’s geared towards coders..I have a feeling that people who use Elementor use it because they don’t want to code...they want to design. So building repeaters and relationships should be made super easy. Go Jet Engine.
@@henriquemonnerat5199 I can honestly say that they really need to up their game to come close to the ease and flexibility of ACF with either Anywhere Elementor Pro or Dynamic Content for Elementor, especially when it comes to repeater regions and relationships.
With the above combo, you could have a relationship or repeater setup and integrated into your theme templates (via Elementor Pro) in a few minutes. I'd spend that time just trying to remember in what order I needed to do the same things with JE. 😂
JE has a lot of potential, but as you said, they need to refine it and not keep adding new half baked features.
many thanks Paul. Greeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat VIDEO
Never understand jet engine before... I still prefer ACF rather than jet engine in 2021... Maybe next year try using jet engine
Did you see me Google this question? LOL. Thanx
Robert Klaassens Big brother strikes again.. 😉
THANK U
Show us the dog!! :)