For the most part using a group or using prefixing in ACF does the same thing to the field name. But there is one difference that can effect coding.
I generally use group fields and I will explain why.
Usually I create a template part for showing content from a clone. Think of it like a component.
So let’s say have a clone with just one field in it named “field_x”
If I use clone prefixing then my code will change every time I use the clone so that I can call “prefix_1_fied_x”, “prefix_2_field_x”, etc.
If I use a group field then I can do this
if (have_rows('group_z')) {
// always true, a group field is a repeater that always has one row
while (have_rows('group_z)) {
the_row();
get_template_part('template-parts/components/my-component');
}
}
and inside the my-component.php file I can always call
get_sub_field('field_x')
no matter what group it’s in. for one or two fields maybe not a big deal, but if you have 10 or 40 fields in your clone then you only need to code a new loop to call the component template rather then re-code all of the field calls to use the new prefixed field names.
