What are product attributes and how do they differ from custom fields?

Attributes are reusable, structured descriptors of products — for example "Colour," "Storage," or "Material" — defined once as attribute definitions and then given values per product. They're meant for product characteristics that participate in browsing, search, and templates. Custom fields, by contrast, are the global "add a field to any form" system — they can be added not just to…

Attributes are reusable, structured descriptors of products — for example "Colour," "Storage," or "Material" — defined once as attribute definitions and then given values per product. They're meant for product characteristics that participate in browsing, search, and templates. Custom fields, by contrast, are the global "add a field to any form" system — they can be added not just to products but to customers, vendors, orders, leads, and so on, to capture data the built-in schema doesn't cover. So attributes are a catalogue-specific, reusable taxonomy of product traits; custom fields are a platform-wide extensibility mechanism for any form. Both end up as data the system can display, search, and template.