One space or many for a documentation intranet?

[Steve Hastings]

hi there,

being new to Confluence I've been tasked to build a documentation intranet for a mid-sized client. They need documentation for several departments. Can anyone suggest please whether I should just make one space for this client with then just pages and child pages for each department; or should I create a space for each department of the client?

many thanks, steve

[Bill Bailey · Accepted solution]

Yes, having set up more than one Confluence-based doc systems, I do recommend separate spaces for a couple of reasons:

• Reduces issues of page name collisions
• Ability to set up different permission structures.
• Makes the navigation less complex (with one large space, you can end up with very deep page hierarchies.

[Steve Hastings]

Thank you Bill. Much appreciated!

[Thomas Schlegel · Accepted solution]

Hi @Steve Hastings,

I also would recommend different spaces. It's easier to manage the overall structure with different spaces and you get less errors like "A page with this name already exists". 

Also, if you need different permissions per department, you also need different spaces.

[Steve Hastings]

Thank you Thomas for your advice!

[Danyal Iqbal · Accepted solution]

I would recommend 1 space per team/department.

[Steve Hastings]

Thank you Danyal!