WordPress Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), now Secure Custom Fields, was always a bandaid. With Payload, you get clean, structured data, custom fields in code, and bidirectional relationships. And unlike ACF, it's truly open source.
Payload is the fastest growing, developer-first headless CMS. Next.js-native and fully TypeScript, it can power anything from enterprise websites to internal applications.
npx create-payload-app@beta
With Payload, custom fields are part of the core—no licensing fees, no extra plugins, just open-source simplicity.
Skip the endless UI clicks. In Payload, you define your schema entirely in code, reducing overhead and ensuring consistency across your project.
Payload includes developer-friendly capabilities like bidirectional relationships that aren’t available in WordPress ACF.
Payload gives your data proper structure, with each collection in its own table—no more cramming everything into a single bloated table.
Payload is the fully open-source alternative to WordPress.
npx create-payload-app