12 Oct 24

ACF Plugin no longer available on WordPress.org

By Iain Poulson

We were saddened and appalled by Matt Mullenweg’s actions this morning appropriating the Advanced Custom Fields plugin that our ACF team has been actively developing for the WordPress community since 2011.

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.

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.

 

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About the Author

Iain is the Product Manager for Advanced Custom Fields. He has a long history of building and growing WordPress plugins. Moonlights as a PhpStorm evangelist.

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  • Aaron says:
    October 13, 2024 at 3:23 am

    Hey Iain! Wanted to express my support and feel so sorry for you that ACF got caught in this hideous fight.

    I’ve been a WordPress user since my teenage years and was often advocating for it as one of the greatest wonderful open source democratic project. Sadely it looks like there isn’t that much democracy in it’s leadership at the moment. Maybe there hasn’t been for the past years and I was overlooking it. I really think Matt and WP as an organisation handled the whole controversy in the worst way with every step and decision taken in the last two weeks. I hope we’ll be able to find a way to hold them accountable for the actions that were taken and can set guidelines that this cannot happen anymore.

    Until then we’ll continue to build great websites built with the powerful combination WordPress and ACF Pro for the moment.

    • ginsterbusch says:
      October 14, 2024 at 3:01 pm

      It hasnt been democracy for years. For me, the breaking point was Gutenborg, which still is bad, but because Automattic needs to compete with Squarespit and the likes, "we" (= them, NOT the actual community) need to compete and have a "built-in" page builder ..

      .. but the list goes on. To me, whenever Automattic thinks they need to show their shareholders that they’re still "up and going", there is another one of those "gems from the community", which in 95% of the cases in the least 10ish years consists of reusing existing code of others. Esp. code that was ignored, and their authors being factually silenced through this.

      Also, from bitter IRL experience, its gonna be business as usual soon all over again, as in: Nobody is gonna be held accountable. People just gonna shrug because they cant do anything, similar to how a monarchy works, or a one-party-system, and then go on with their lifes as before.

      cu, w0lf.

  • Abdullah Al Afique says:
    October 13, 2024 at 5:07 am

    This appears to be a very disheartening, I will always support ACF, I hope you guys get to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

  • Gorgc says:
    October 13, 2024 at 9:53 am

    Mullwenweg is a cancer to wordpress. Disgusting behaviour.

    He can’t stop power tripping and lying about everything and everything.

  • tm1 says:
    October 14, 2024 at 12:02 am

    ACF is too expensive for what it is, and should have been made core a long time ago. You’re feeling the aches and pains because your service offering (including your poor attempt at a headless solution) is abysmal. Moreover, you’re unnecessarily co-opting the WP trademark without permission. If you were smarter about your business model, this wouldn’t be happening.

    • Craig Brown says:
      October 14, 2024 at 12:22 am

      WordPress does not have a trademark on the letters WP.

      There are other custom field plugins if you’re trying to save money.

      Mullenweg is obviously a tyrant. And your suggestion that a 3rd party WordPress plugin can just be stolen because it needs to become core is tyrannical as well.

      Last month, Mullenweg published a blog post criticizing WP Engine as a “cancer to WordPress.” he suggested that its “WP” branding confuses customers, making it sound like the company is officially connected to WordPress.

      If you go to WordPress and search the plugins for WP, you get 1,000 results.

      https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/wp/

      • tm1 says:
        October 14, 2024 at 12:29 am

        Absolutely see your point, however the notion of ACF should again have become core since the community has been screaming for it for years. There’s nothing at all in the Pro functionality to justify cost. I’ve been a dedicated WordPress developer since 2007, and avoid ACF since it’s overpriced, bloated, and lacks the means to produce a more "lean" experience for users.

        Please note the vast majority of plugins you reference have a free and paid option. The upset was the branding with the hosting solution. Speaking as someone who has worked internationally with trademarks that have been exploited, y’all should have considered a different approach.

        • tm1 says:
          October 14, 2024 at 12:45 am

          Please don’t get me started on how awful the implementation of FaustJS went down. It’s an unusable platform with equally unusable tutorials.

        • Artem Sakharyats says:
          October 14, 2024 at 3:12 am

          I have a lifetime unlimited PRO license. I bought it a long time ago for a ridiculous amount of money, around 100 USD. If you’ve been in development since 2007, you could have done the same back then, but you chose a different path. It’s just that you shouldn’t say it’s expensive when you personally had the option of a cheap, lifetime purchase. I agree that WordPress can be confusing, BUT that’s no excuse to steal a product or pass off someone else’s work as your own. There are laws and courts instead of lawlessness. This kind of action can harm millions of websites, cause stress to millions of people, and waste their time and resources – how can you defend someone in such a situation? It’s a low act that should be criticized and punished accordingly.

          If ACF was meant to become part of the core engine, it could have been bought out before WP Engine acquired it. But WordPress didn’t do that. They could also have developed their own product, like WooCommerce – why steal? They themselves don’t like pirates who leak stolen software in group buys.

          • Cheryl Montgomery says:
            November 6, 2024 at 1:01 pm

            I’ve wondered for years why WordPress went the Gutenberg route, despite the horrifically low ratings that it had, when a system like ACF existed. Why not buy it out and implement it in the core WordPress system? It makes miles more sense. And this whole thing is just… it’s a bad look, man.

        • Matthew Harris says:
          October 14, 2024 at 4:35 am

          If you had been using it since 2007 wouldn’t you have been able to get the lifetime, unlimited licence, while it was still available?

          I got confused and bought a couple of single site licences then got the unlimited licence, and even with that, I’ve —more— than got my money’s worth out of it.

          • tm1 says:
            October 14, 2024 at 5:22 am

            Feels like you missed me stating, "… and avoid ACF since it’s overpriced, bloated, and lacks the means to produce a more "lean" experience for users."

            Please read for comprehension before replying.

        • Matteo Canever says:
          October 14, 2024 at 5:03 am

          Sorry but you look pretty confused about what’s actually happening. There’s nothing wrong with forking software released with GPL or trying to get it merged to core. You can literally create your own version of ACF now. Or propose a merge request to the WP core, if you’re brave enough ( good luck with that, it’s 200k lines of code). But to get it adopted by millions of users… oh boy that’s a different story! Users will need to trust you and get support from you. Reviews won’t forgive. This is exactly what ACF has been doing for ages. Now it’s been basically taken over with no merit (noticed how the slug for SCF is advanced-custom-fields?) and this is extremely immoral, unprecedented and dangerous for the whole ecosystem. BTW: overpriced? I manage about 1300 WP sites and the license costs me about 300 USD per year for all of them. I would say it’s a steal…

          • tm1 says:
            October 14, 2024 at 5:08 am

            Not confused. ACF is bloated, over priced, and should have become core years ago. Moreover, and having been a customer, support is terrible and "Pro" features have never justified the price tag.

            Responses like this is why I have moved all my clients away from WordPress.

        • Cheryl Montgomery says:
          November 6, 2024 at 1:00 pm

          ACF has a free, unpaid option. And yes, ACF offers dramatic improvements from free to pro. The flex content field in particular makes the license worthwhile… if you’re not familiar with it, you really have no business arguing as much as you are. And by the way, if $50 a year for one site is "too expensive" for a plugin that revolutionizes the CMS, I’m curious to hear what you think is reasonable.

          As for being "bloated", again, I’m really curious to hear what plugins have this amount of functionality but are "lean" enough for you, and what you mean by "bloated". On the front end, it outputs no files. I’ve even printed all database calls made by all plugins on page load, and found that plugins like Gravity Forms have wild amounts of database calls, but ACF has relatively few, given how much it does. It’s completely revamped how it stores information in the database and has never slowed a site down in my 13 years of experience with it. In fact, it’s always a dramatic improvement on actual page builder plugins, like WP Bakery (which, by the way, has the WP right there in the name, but I guess they’re fine by you?).

      • Matthew Harris says:
        October 14, 2024 at 4:32 am

        Actually its 10,000 results not 1k :O

    • contact926 says:
      October 14, 2024 at 1:04 am

      You’ve got absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.

      • ACF is cheap and if you paid for pro a few years ago you are grandfathered into a literal unlimited usage with the legacy API key.
      • The headless implementation works perfectly fine if you have half a brain and know how to utilize GraphQL. Hell, there’s even plugins that marry these two systems together.
      • ACF is lean as it literally just adds additional postmeta entries to the native table in the database that wordpress utilizes instead of creating 15 other tables to handle the data, like most other 3rd party plugins do.
      • If you can’t understand or use FaustJS with the level of documentation, tutorials, and guides out there on the web I would suggest maybe going the route where you don’t have to wrangle out code to build websites anymore and start using elementor.
      • Look up the definition of opensource.

      I’m sorry but to be flat out honest here if you’ve been with the platform since 2007 you’d know better than to comment this nonsense. Furthermore, how’d you even come across this post if it wasn’t via email, insinuating you are signed up and actively using ACF in the first place. Good lord you have issues.

    • Ian Atkins says:
      October 14, 2024 at 9:50 am

      Just because you deem something expensive, doesn’t mean you can steal it.

      WordPress has had ample opportunity to add improved custom fields to the core of the site. There’s been several initiatives that have presumably died due to lack of internal uptake, regardless of the obvious need from developers and users.

      Note the leader of the current version of the project has just stepped down due to this debacle. https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/10/13/fields-api-team-seeking-new-leadership/

  • Juice Digital Web Development says:
    October 14, 2024 at 3:22 am

    Wow… Checkbox on the WordPress login page : "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise."… how low can you go? We truly hope that you find a way to get back what if rightfully yours. Stay Strong!

  • Detlef Beyer says:
    October 14, 2024 at 3:51 am

    Mullenweg is out for a confrontation (which he is now living out vehemently). His argument that he wants to save the OpenSource idea is not really credible, because with Automattic he is massively pursuing his own commercial interests. ACF has significantly enhanced the potential of WP and in my opinion it is absolutely justified that a Pro version of the software costs money. Mullenweg cannot be concerned with his pretended moral motives. It’s about power and commerce. If someone is making money in the WP cosmos, then it must be Mullenweg – that must be his motivation. How can an individual’s decision be reconciled with the OpenSource idea? No discussion, only offended vanity and greed are the motivation here. And of course the Secure Custom Fields is stillborn – WP users who don’t notice the change will soon be faced with an outdated and insecure plugin.

  • Oskar says:
    October 14, 2024 at 4:00 am

    Give back to the WordPress community, and it’s solved. It’s as simple as that! What are you waiting for?

  • que ton says:
    October 14, 2024 at 4:05 am

    Its of course more to it than this blog post says. Before you critizice Mulleweg, get more background here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/12/in-latest-move-against-wp-engine-wordpress-takes-control-of-acf-plugin/

    • ginsterbusch says:
      October 14, 2024 at 2:46 pm

      That doesnt add more background. Its still not mentioned anywhere that "Secure Custom Fields" is a "forced" fork of ACF. And that is where this drama continues.

      Yes, WP Engine is not without fault either, but the current "measurements" are Automattic-only. And yeah, Mullenweg and Automattic are "the community" that wp.org claims to be "developing WordPress". Everybody else has long been trolled out or is somehow affiliated with the "leaders".

      cu, w0lf.

      • que ton says:
        October 14, 2024 at 6:55 pm

        Well, I think some of WP Engines services, specially the hosting, is crap compared to what you pay. What I felt when I tested them was that they tried to put a straw in my wallet to suck out most possible without giving much back. And this is also what Mullenweg says he feel about them.

        • Cheryl Montgomery says:
          November 6, 2024 at 12:54 pm

          I think you’re absolutely correct that WP Engine is abysmal hosting… I always specifically recommend against it to any of my clients. It’s slow, bloated, and has questionable solutions for dev problems. And it’s super expensive.

          Buuuuuuuut this isn’t how WordPress fights a copyright infringement (in the name WP Engine) while still keeping the moral high ground. This is literally insane.

      • que ton says:
        October 14, 2024 at 6:56 pm

        Also I think that most people here dont know the backround of why Mullenweg did what he did. I too got extremely provocated by Mullenwegs action, untill i did research to find out why he did it.

  • Kevin Nisay says:
    October 14, 2024 at 4:11 am

    Wanted to express my support and feel so sorry for you that ACF got caught in this hideous fight.

    So thats why there is a security risk on our website, because of this ?

  • Andrei Miagkov says:
    October 14, 2024 at 5:24 am

    Держитесь ребята, использую ваш плагин на разных сайтах и считаю, что это очень подлый поступок, который подрывает сообщество open sourse. Надеюсь Матт одумается и вернет всё как было.

  • Duangsamhon Klurkawpisan says:
    October 14, 2024 at 5:29 am

    Will you update acf pro even after custom field become part of the core . I’m really worried

  • Jansen Tolle says:
    October 14, 2024 at 1:09 pm

    Matt has absolutely lost his marbles. I’m a contributor to WP and will not be doing any more contributing until Matt is removed from his throne.

    • ginsterbusch says:
      October 14, 2024 at 2:52 pm

      Thats a thing been going on since ages. To me, Gutenborg was the last nail on the coffin. Yes, I do still work with WP, but only because I need to earn money to pay the bills, not because I love that "lets make it into Squarespit"-train wreck.

      But at this point in time, I dont think people are gonna care much. This is gonna go on for a bit and then everybody is gonna shrug and move on.

      Or else? You all could help with ClassicPress. There is a reason for this fork, and one of them is not having MatticPress, but an actually community-driven development process.

      cu, w0lf.

      ps: yeah, site drop etc.: https://www.classicpress.net/ 🙂

  • Duke says:
    October 14, 2024 at 6:20 pm

    Wow. Words cannot express how messed up this is. 100% supporting you! What an undignified, damaging and unnecessary display of power.

  • Fast River says:
    October 15, 2024 at 8:29 pm

    As this is the ACF website, and most of the people reading this are ACF users and most likely enjoy the plugin and even rely on it, coming to this website to post anti-ACF and pro-Matt comments today seems like a bad strategy. You’re just making that side look worse, and making users like me appreciate ACF more. Don’t you think?

  • Elizabeth Chen says:
    October 16, 2024 at 7:59 am

    Sorry. I would like to know if the recent changes might affect the existing database data?

    We are concerned that if we continue using the free version without purchasing PRO, it might cause issues with the database data. Or will downloading the plugin package from the ACF official website prevent this problem?

  • Lee Mason says:
    October 17, 2024 at 4:47 am

    And today – WordFence alerts to a ‘critical security vulnerability’ in SCF. Give it back to it’s creators, it was always secure before! Every agency or team I have worked with on WP sites uses ACF – and we all love it! Boycott SFC and move to ACF Pro…. I am doing it as we speak.

  • Utkrsh Sharma says:
    October 17, 2024 at 4:49 pm

    Acf removed It But it is very helpful for us please resolve issue why <a href="https://fixymonk.com/acf-plugin-removed-from-wordpress/“>acf removed from wordpress.org</a>

  • Moses Medh says:
    October 17, 2024 at 6:28 pm

    Why not just give back to the community. It is that simple. There are developers spending ours developing this software and you just want to cashcow on it without giving back. That is selfish and ridiculous. 40 hours a week is bare minimum. If you ought to have build your own CMS you’ll most likely be spending over 20% of your revenue to maintain it. If you don’t want to pay, give back in work hours as matt said.

  • Eric Tuvel says:
    November 7, 2024 at 2:59 pm

    Hi, I just installed ACF on my site via the download link you provide in the article, and now my site won’t load at all. Has that happened to anyone else? Can you please help?

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