"For a modern personal computer", systemd is pretty much spot-on what you'd want. On the other hand, if you're running a bunch of fast-scaling containers/VMs,

"For a modern personal computer", systemd is pretty much spot-on what you'd want. On the other hand, if you're running a bunch of fast-scaling containers/VMs, and just want init to (re)spawn one (or a handful) of processes, then step aside as quickly as possible, sitting there quietly, reaping zombies - TFA has this page: https://without-systemd.org/wiki/index_php/Init/#standalone_init_.28separate_from_configuration.2Fmanagement_of_runlevels.29 https://without-systemd.org/wiki/index_php/Init/#standalone_... And there are other alternatives as well, such as: https://github.com/Yelp/dumb-init https://github.com/Yelp/dumb-init https://github.com/krallin/tini https://github.com/krallin/tini