The number of binaries is irrelevant. Systemd has a lot of binaries but is still called a monolith. Unlike systemd with journald, Busybox allows you to use Vim

The number of binaries is irrelevant. Systemd has a lot of binaries but is still called a monolith. Unlike systemd with journald, Busybox allows you to use Vim instead of Busybox vi without any trouble. Busybox might also emphasize the “small and simple” aspect much more than GNU tools, which have a reputation for being needlessly bloated (see all of the flags to cat, for example).