How do you decide when to use a Content Item vs a Knowledge Article?

[Bhaskarla Neeha]

I’ve been working with Service Catalog and Knowledge Management, and I often notice that Content Items and Knowledge Articles serve similar purposes both provide static information to the user and are visible on the Service Portal.

I understand the basic distinction:

Knowledge Articles live in Knowledge Bases, are searchable, and used across the platform.

Content Items live in the Service Catalog and are meant for showing static info alongside catalog items.

But in practice, especially when designing a user-friendly portal, they can feel interchangeable.

So my question is:
How do you decide when something should be a Knowledge Article vs a Content Item? Are there best practices, performance considerations, or team workflows that influence your choice?

Would love to hear how other teams make this decision in real-world implementations.

[SD_Chandan]

Hi @Bhaskarla Neeha ,

• Use a Knowledge Article when you need searchable, reusable, version-controlled content with feedback options.
• Use a Content Item when you want static info tied to a catalog item or need layout/design flexibility.

Feature Knowledge Article Content Item

Location	Knowledge Base	Service Catalog
Searchable	Yes (Global Search, Portal Search)	No (unless custom search added)
Versioning & Feedback	Yes (version control, helpful/unhelpful voting)	No
Audience Targeting	Yes (via user criteria, KB permissions)	Limited
Use Case	Informational, procedural, troubleshooting	Static info tied to catalog items or portal layout

[Bhaskarla Neeha]

Yeah now I got it @SD_Chandan, thanks for the clarity😀

[GlideFather · Accepted solution]

Hi @Bhaskarla Neeha,

I have used Content item just once in my project history and it was for the purpose to be something between article and catalog item.

It was not possible to submit it, it was holding details and links on how to log for an external system used in that company, so when an employee wanted to log to that external system (I think it was Concur but I am not sure) and they searched for it is ServiceNow they got this chance to be redirected where they needed.

I dont' think there is any general recommendation, because each piece is for something else:

• Knowledge Article 
  • literally an article
  • lifecycle and workflow: published, reviewed, authored, versioned, retired, valid to <date>,
• Content item
  • any article, document, or link
  • no workflow nor further process as in KM above needed,
• Catalog Item 
  • form with variables to be submitted,
  • creating REQ + RITM,
  • usually require approval (may be optional),
• Record Producer (
  • form with variables to be submitted,
  • creating records to ANY table except of REQ/RITM.

[GlideFather]

@Bhaskarla Neeha let's continue in brainstorming :))

Also, another thing to consider - because content item and knowledge article can look very similar - is the rating. Knowledge articles can be rated and commented below while content item not.

The Knowledge articles with their content are searchable in the Portal/ESC and in the incident form when typing a short description, it is filtering KB Articles with the text from short description. This is not supported for the Content item.

So we can say that Content item would be carving to stone, something that will not require updates that often, eventual changes are stored in update set.

Knowledge article can be written for a specific software version and will be valid for limited time, it will require maintenance and creation of an article is not captured in update set...

These differences above shall be the criteria to decide for Article or Content item