I remember a time when building Classic WordPress themes was a thing. Before Advanced Custom Fields was a thing and I didn’t know any better, I would add html markup into the text editor to get that layouts I wanted.
It didn’t bother me then and it doesn’t bother me too much now as I know my code and it’s extremely rare for a client of mine to ever ask for the keys to their website. I have always done the updates.
Fast forward a few years and now we have the battle of the page builders all fighting with each other for the top spot, and of course we have Gutenberg.
I hate Gutenberg! I also hate page builders, every single one of them. I have owned and tried most and not a single one has be itching to get out of bed to use it. 😀
Firstly you have to learn a new way of development each time a new one comes along. First it was Divi, total mess highly opinionated and slow as a snail. Then I moved to Elementor, but better but not by much. Both were just toys and yet somehow Elementor stays up there at the top and is used by agencies all over the world. Do you guys not care about code?
I switched to Oxygen for a bit, a much better experience before they built breakdance and everyone jumped to Bricks. I did too, why did I do that? I didn’t like that either. Not that it was a bad builder, it just mean that once again I had to learn a new way of building and each time I jumped it mean buying another licence for another tool that I had little access to code wise.
Now we have Etch WP out by Kevin Geary. I like his talks, bought his products. ACSS and Frames. But again, they are opinionated tools and leave you with little room for learning.
I won’t buy into Etch, I wish him the best of luck but now I am going back to a good old starter theme with blocks made using Advanced Custom Fields.
Building Websites with ACF and Tailwind
Yep, that is where I am at right now and loving it. I am not going to lie, it’s been an absolute nightmare figuring out how to pull blocks in, rendering preview images and using Tailwind inside a WordPress theme. I found a shortcut and you are going to absolutely love it.
That is all you need to build amazing websites in WordPress with Tailwind! Oh and a copy of Advanced Custom Fields Pro of course.
With advanced custom fields, you can build your own blocks and have them render in in the editor exactly how you see them in the front end. You do not need to learn how to create Gutenberg native blocks and it’s more than enough for most WordPress sites. This site, has been created using these tools alone. Every post type, the blog feeds and even the little technology icons you see on the project pages have been made with ACF and a bit of PHP.
But, I don’t know PHP!
Do not let not knowing PHP stop you from building WordPress websites the right way. If I get stuck or need a function I will ask ChatGPT and I am not afraid to say that, we used to lean on Stack Overflow and wait for answers, now they come quicker than you can say “cat in a hat”!
I don’t know enough PHP to build something useful but I am learning as I go. Open AI can teach you a lot. It’s not perfect and it does make mistakes. It helps to know a bit about the subject you are working on when prompting so you can spot the mistakes and correct the AI. I went in knowing exactly what I wanted as I had migrated this site twice from different builds and systems, as I like this design.
It’s not about being a purist. It’s about having full control again. When I build with ACF blocks inside a clean starter theme using Tailwind, I know exactly what’s happening under the hood. No bloat, no mystery wrappers, no div soup. Just clean, maintainable code that loads fast and works exactly as intended.
I’m not claiming this is the one true way. If you love Bricks or you’re smashing out projects in Elementor, that’s cool. You do you. But for me? I like to know I can jump into a template part, change a line of code, and not have the whole layout implode. I like knowing my blocks are reusable, predictable, and built around real-world content structures—not some abstract drag-and-drop logic that breaks the second a plugin update rolls through.
This approach also scales. Once you’ve built a few blocks and nailed your spacing system, you can reuse the same logic across every site. You’re not learning a new UI every six months. You’re just writing better code. Clients don’t even notice the difference—except their sites are faster, and you’re not charging them to debug 17 nested divs just to move a heading.
In the end, going back to basics with ACF, Tailwind, and a lean starter theme feels like coming home. I’m not stuck in someone else’s ecosystem, I’m building my own. And that, to me, is what WordPress was always about in the first place.
If you’re tired of the noise and just want to build, this setup might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
