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# ACF vs. Meta Box for Developers Who Have to Pick One

**[ACF](https://daily.dev/sources/acf)** · 19 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is positioned as the stronger default over Meta Box for most agency and client WordPress builds. ACF offers a unified field-group workflow that covers custom fields, CPTs, taxonomies, blocks, REST, WPGraphQL, Local JSON, Git, and WP-CLI deployments. Meta Box instead splits functionality across extensions like MB Custom Table and MB Relationships, which suit specific architectural needs such as dedicated table storage. ACF natively supports bidirectional relationships, while Meta Box stores connections in a separate mb_relationships table. ACF PRO costs $49 to $249 per year for unlimited sites under the Agency tier, while Meta Box's pricing splits by site count and extension bundles, ranging from $49 to $699.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-vs-meta-box>

## Questions this post answers

### Does ACF support bidirectional relationships between custom fields?

Yes, ACF natively supports bidirectional updates for Relationship, Post Object, User, and Taxonomy fields. Developers enable 'Bidirectional' in the Advanced settings and select target fields; when the source field changes, ACF automatically adds or removes the object's ID from those target fields. This only works when the source field is attached to a post, user, or taxonomy term, not on options pages, blocks, or widgets.

_Comparing relationship handling across plugins gets easier with WordPress dev resources on daily.dev._

### How much does ACF PRO cost compared to Meta Box?

ACF PRO costs $49 per year for one website (Personal), $149 per year for ten websites (Freelancer), or $249 per year for unlimited websites (Agency), with every tier including the full PRO feature set. Meta Box charges $49 to $149 per year for Basic, $99 to $229 per year for Ultimate, or one-time lifetime bundles at $299 or $699, split by site count and extension bundle.

_Budgeting a WordPress plugin stack is simpler when pricing comparisons like this surface on daily.dev._

### Does Meta Box have an official WPGraphQL integration like ACF does?

No, Meta Box's documentation lists REST API support through MB REST API but does not document an official WPGraphQL extension, and its support forum points developers toward community-created integrations instead. ACF, by contrast, has WPGraphQL for ACF, an established free extension mapping ACF Field Groups and PRO fields like Repeater and Flexible Content into the WPGraphQL schema.

_Picking a headless WordPress stack gets easier when integration gaps like this show up on daily.dev._

## Similar posts on daily.dev

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