Profile: davidm-13

Problem: I would like some advice on whether to use custom fields or taxonomies for some data.

Solution: The main difference between using a custom field and using a taxonomy is archives. WordPress automatically creates archives for each taxonomy term at a URL like yoursite.com/taxonomy/term, which hold a list of all posts where that term is applied. That list is syndicated to your feed URLs. Custom fields do not have automatic archives, so you would not have automatic archive lists created for those.

There are some limitations to using custom field values in conditionals, as described in the conditional documentation.

There are also some nuances to the types of inputs that can be used for each custom field type in a custom search View or in a Form. For example, there is no auto-suggest field type in Forms for custom fields, but it does exist for terms in flat taxonomies.

Relevant Documentation:
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/conditional-html-output-in-views/