Understanding Drupal Entity Types: Content Types vs Bundles

In Drupal 11, bundle and content type are related but distinct concepts:

Content Type vs Bundle

Content Type is a specific type of bundle used for Node entities only. When you create a content type like “Article” or “Page” in the Drupal UI, you’re creating a bundle of the Node entity type.

Bundle is the broader, more generic term that applies across all fieldable entity types in Drupal. It’s a subtype or variation of an entity type that can have its own set of fields.

Examples Across Entity Types

    ∙    Node entity → bundles are called “content types” (Article, Page, Blog post)
    ∙    Taxonomy term entity → bundles are “vocabularies” (Tags, Categories)
    ∙    User entity → typically has just one bundle (user)
    ∙    Media entity → bundles are “media types” (Image, Video, Document)
    ∙    Paragraph entity → bundles are “paragraph types”
    ∙    Custom entity → you define your own bundle types

In Practice

All content types are bundles, but not all bundles are content types. The term “content type” is essentially Drupal’s user-friendly label for “node bundles” in the admin UI.

From a technical/API perspective, when you’re working with entity queries or the Entity API, you’ll use the bundle machine name regardless of whether it’s a content type or another kind of bundle. 

The underlying architecture treats them the same way—they’re all just bundles that allow different field configurations on the same base entity type.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​