What are the best Linux init systems?

Question

10

Options
Considered

448

User
Recs.

Feb 28, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 9 OptionsWhy?

Best Linux init systems	Price	Last Updated
92 OpenRC	-	Feb 28, 2021
80 runit	-	Feb 18, 2021
77 SysVinit	-	Feb 9, 2021
-- The GNU Shepherd	-	Feb 25, 2021
-- s6	-	Feb 28, 2021

See Full List

8 Other Options Considered

runit

Top Pro

Fast, parallel startup

After the system's one time tasks (stage 1) are done, the system services are started up in parallel. The operating system's process scheduler takes care of having the services available as soon as possible. See More

Top Con

Slow

GenuineMyesyats's Experience

I use runit on Void Linux. See More

Top Pro

Small and Unix-like

One of the runit project's principles is to keep the code size small. As of version 1.0.0 of runit, the runit.c source contains 330 lines of code; the runsvdir.c source is 274 lines of code, the runsv.c source 509. This minimizes the possibility of bugs introduced by programmer's fault, and makes it more easy for security related people to proofread the source code. The runit core programs have a very small memory footprint and do not allocate memory dynamically. See More

Top Con

Not GPL

PersonableMedusa's Experience

really faster than SysVinit. really simple to config, start/stop services. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Simple scripts linked to the proper directory is all that's needed to bring a service up at boot, and everything is up and running quickly. See More

Top Con

Development stalled

Last patch was back in 2014. See More

marcuswmg's Experience

I use Artix Linux that uses Runit. The OS system runs snappier on my systems over the systemd init Arch Linux I was using before. I am very happy with RUNIT. See More

Top Pro

Runs on every POSIX system

ExceptionalMenhit's Experience

Super easy, works as expected, and fast. See More

Top Pro

Supported by several Linux plumbers

Myself included. Development is no longer stalled. See More

Frank Earl's Experience

I'm the current maintainer (yes, the con of it not being supported is not QUITE truth), so I'll be honest and state a bit of bias there. Right now, I'm booting Yocto Embedded Linux distributions using runit thanks to meta-runit. It just simply works. It doesn't expose attack faces on your embedded devices like systemd DOES. It's easier to approach, easier to figure out how to drive it properly. See More

Top Pro

Init purity - does what an init system must do and nothing more

UNIX philosophy, easy to add new services, easy to manipulate, really fast. See More

PrinceKael's Experience

So simple to use yet effective. Everything runs fast while also being stable. See More

Top Pro

Fast and easy to use

Aleksander Svétnik's Experience

It's simplicity is charming. See More

Top Pro

Faster boot time than with systemd

Faster on older systems, especially those running on HDDs. See More

Yoši Yoda's Experience

I use runit with Artix Linux. It's fast and it works. See More

See All

SysVinit

Top Pro

Simple to understand

Top Con

Duplicated implementation for every service

Every init script needs to reinvent the wheel for every script: argument processing, start/stop/restart/reload/status/whatever processing, finding/clearing/creating PID files, sourcing defaults, building and setting configuration options, so on and so forth. See More

RationalKulullu's Experience

Simple to understand, boots up even with errors and let you fix the issues on a fully booted system. See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Since sysvinit does only one thing (initialize the system) and one thing only, it's very stable and it's impossible for it to fail for any problems unrelated to booting the system. See More

Top Con

Launches a bunch of processes to launch a process

Every init script spawns at least sh/dash/bash, and probably also additional processes such as cat, echo, start-stop-daemon, etc, just to start a single daemon that may not even be needed at the time of boot. This massive overhead results in poor performance, and is a killer for embedded systems. See More

Top Pro

Better boot time and overall performance

It boots up really fast if you use it on a desktop system. See More

Top Con

Fragile

Scripts can be broken easily, specially if your machine state changes constantly (like almost all modern computers). See More

Top Pro

No feature creep

It is an init system nothing more. See More

Top Con

Hard to write sysv-initscripts

As one needs programming skills (opposed to a declarative style). See More

Top Pro

Does not stop booting if something fails

It just works, misconfiguration of a third party service wont break booting. See More

Top Con

Follows UNIX Philosophy

Yes. This is a CON. Unix Philosophy was a set of guidelines that pretty much made sense in 60 and 70's machines. Trying to follow that instead of the material reality of computing makes software crippled, barely usable and prone to hit dead ends. See More

Top Con

Can lead to slow boot

Since init starts tasks serially, it has to wait for a certain task to finish in order to start the next one. But when startup processes end up I/O blocked, this leads to considerable delays during boot. See More

Top Con

Initscripts is not portable

It is virtually impossible to write portable sysvinit-scripts. See More

See All

The GNU Shepherd

Top Pro

It's GNU

s6

Top Pro

Runs on every POSIX system

Top Con

Not GPL

Operating Systems's Experience

s6-rc, provides a real Service Manager, a Services Supervisor with Parallel RC and logging, upon demand. The perfect continuation, of Runit. See More

Top Pro

You can use all its components independently

Top Con

Heavy

It depends on libc, has a lot of code. See More

HilariousHachiman's Experience

Obarun See More

Top Pro

Rock solid

Portable: Linux, BSD, Solaris POSIX. Can be compiled with musl. A lot of feature including dependencies service management. Easy to implement with the conjunction of 66 (https://framagit.org/obarun/66.git) which provide frontend file for service declaration, automatic logger creation,nested supervision tree,user service,instantiated services and many more. Best alternative ever. Work out of the box, PROC was made on Gentoo, Funtoo, Devuan, KISS linux, Adelie, Void, Antix. Default init system and service manager on Obarun (https://web.obarun.org) and from a long time ago. See More

Top Pro

The perfect init

s6-rc, provides a real Service Manager, a Services Supervisor with Parallel RC and logging, upon demand. The perfect continuation, of Runit. ISC License, is not a barrier, Ibut instead, is so friendly to Open Source and Free Software Licence See More

See All

Upstart

Top Con

Ubuntu abandoned it

The original developers (Canonical) seem to have abandoned this project. At least they're no longer using it in Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

Simple .conf file in /etc/init

Top Con

It was just sysvinit or systemd in disguise

It really just offered a barely more intuitive way to create init scripts for the actual init system running behind upstart. See More

Top Pro

Event based startup was fantastic.

Since it is event based, it was simple to have interdependent services emit status messages each other. Service start ordering and shutdown was easily managed in one conf file. The "lazy" start of systemd is BS and is a mess to debug . service unit files have no clue what another service state is. The maintainers add arbitrary timers that add more complexity and more init hangs. The systemd documentation is poor. When a service fails to start (or stop) systemd follows the Microsoft model of not telling the reason why. See More

See All

systemd

Top Con

UNIX-like isn't the same as the UNIX philosophy

One of the main argument that people who are against using systemd is that it does not follow one of UNIX'S core concepts: 'Do one thing and do it well'. Instead, systemd represents a collection of dozens of tightly coupled libraries, with responsibilities that exceed those of a simple init system, since it also tries to handle things like device management, power management, mount points, cron, encryption, syslog, network configuration etc... See More

Top Pro

Login management out of the box

Systemd contains a daemon called logind which is used for managing user logins. See More

AffableAnnona's Experience

Best Init ever See More

Top Con

Makes dependent products difficult to port

Software dependent on systemd. Becomes difficult to port to systems that lack systemd. See More

Top Pro

Cgroups processes control

Systemd groups all processes by services using Linux's cgroups. Think about memory/cpu/tasks/IO/Net limits and accounting for any service. See More

AdventurousBarnumbirr's Experience

Everything just works fine. See More

Top Con

Too monolithic

It tries to do too much - most people who use systemd aren't even aware of most of the features and don't really use them. It makes can be with complicated to deal with, and it's possible that in a few years this project will be a nightmare to maintain, and the users will feel the effects. See More

Top Pro

Default for many popular distributions

Systemd is the default init system for most popular Linux distributions (Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, etc.) Therefore there is an insane amount of support behind Systemd. Choosing Systemd means running with the herd, which comes with it's pros and few (or none for some people) cons. See More

VersatilePapsukkal's Experience

Some configuration that would otherwise work (i.e. autofs) fails on this init for no reason and it's difficult to debug. See More

Top Con

Binary logging

A binary log structure means that any tools you want to use to parse it will have to be aware of its format, and know how to deal with the ways it can become corrupted. Otherwise, it's not really possible in the easy sense. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Mark Penguin's Experience

Easy to understand, default for many distros, it's a shame people hate it for no reason See More

Top Con

Uses Confirmity as a Philosophy

While it does have many features, SystemD is designed with a pattern of making choices for the user. Since it is not easy for the user to override these decisions, SystemD essentially follows the "knows whats best for the user" philosophy. This may remind the reader of Apple devices, where all the hardware looks the same, all the software looks practically the same, and the only customization options are wallpapers, physical stickers, or phone cases. See More

Top Pro

GPL Licence

ReasonableMinthe's Experience

worst init See More

Top Con

Runs only on Linux

Top Pro

Backed by Red Hat

Oak Bricks's Experience

Its easy to start,stop,enable,and disable serivces See More

Top Con

It's all or nothing

While it is technically possible to use software without SystemD, it really is true that it is "almost impossible" to use software without it, given that all the hard porting work to other init systems has not been done already for you, or given the fact that you are trying to install unported packages directly from the authors (either from binary, like a DEB file, or from source.) Consider the following: Every major Linux distribution runs SystemD as an only option for init systems. Around %95 of GNU/Linux users use SystemD, give or take. SystemD makes things easier for lazy developers (at a cost, however.) Therefore, most software packages that depend on an init system are developed with inherent and sole SystemD support, in favor of the status quo. While distributions such as Artix-, Gentoo-, and Void Linux have been able to correct packages that depend on SystemD, it is not the easiest to do so. Developers and users wanting to package their own software or build software from source may give up trying to work without SystemD since the software may need to be edited for extra compatibility. See More

Top Pro

PRO doesn't cripple your hardware

Instead of assuming your computer is a static machine, systemd is designed with modern computers plug and play design in mind. See More

ExceptionalMenhit's Experience

Writing unit files as been a massive hassle. Sometimes they don't work as expected, built in logging it a dumpster fire as it stores your logs in a binary format so they're impossible to sort through. If you're logs are big enough See More

Top Con

Connects to Google DNS servers by default

Top Pro

Full use of kernel features

No POSIX. See More

Holo Deck's Experience

Systemd is basically one of the main reasons why I switched back to Windows as my main operating system after using 10 years of Linux only. Its just hilarious everytime I update systemd somethink breaks eg I've get dropped to the emergency console for some stupid reason. or a start/stop job is running for a few minutes. See More

Top Con

Overkill as an init system, resulting to unsafe init system

1.2 million code lines... How this monster is controlled with such a huge size, for security leaks and other aspects? How about if, the homed new service fails and your home folder may become unreadable or useless? See More

Top Pro

Easy to manage

IncredibleIynx's Experience

Useful tools like journalctl, nspawn, blame, etc. See More

Top Con

Need glibc

Top Pro

Easy to understand

RespectablePramzimas's Experience

A start job is running... See More

Top Con

Frequently change APIs

LikablePhobos's Experience

5 years See More

Top Con

The new version does not consider backward compatibility

They just remove the features they think are "incorrect". See More

PrinceKael's Experience

Buggy, annoying and development suffers from unprecedented scope creep and various other concerns. See More

Top Con

Low-quality code

Top Con

Kills background processes after the user logs out by default

Top Con

Aggressive marketing

It's trying to deprive people of freedom of choice. See More

Top Con

Unstable

Top Con

Makes maintaining a hassle

Top Con

Lead developer shows near complete lack of care for standards of quality needed for developing a part of an OS as integral as the init system is

See All

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sinit

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score 97 · Accepted Answer

OpenRC

Top Pro

No feature creep

OpenRC follows the UNIX philosophy of 'do one thing and do it well', while it's true that it has more features than sysvinit, it does not stay away from its primary function with unnecessary added features. See More

Top Con

No socket activation

OpenRC does not have socket activation yet. It will be added in the future though. See More

's Experience

Fast, Unix-like, easy to understand services, and most importantly simple. See More

Top Pro

Extremely simple

All configuration is done via shell scripts and symlinks. Shell scripts can then use various specialized utilities to ease the development of init scripts. See More

Top Con

Not GPL

ComposedLulal's Experience

support cgroup See More

Top Pro

Fast

OpenRC builds on top of sysvinit and adds some more useful features (like parallel booting) while still the simplicity that sysvinit is know for. Because of this it generally boots faster than other init systems, especially when parallel booting is enabled. See More

Top Con

Not widely supported by distributions

From Distrowatch, only ten distributions (of which 8 Linux, 1 BSD) support OpenRC. It would be nice if distributions allowed more freedom in init system choice. See More

Pietro Mele's Experience

Considering adopting an OpenRC based distribution. See More

Top Pro

Less dependency creep

Using OpenRC does not lock in a distribution by providing specific NON-POSIX extra services which programs then would rely on. See More

SupportivePhantasos's Experience

5 second boot vs Systemd's 20 or runit's 10 See More

Top Pro

A very balanced compromise

Basically OpenRC doesn't replace SysV init, but rather works with it, providing features that SysV is lacking while taking advantage of its benefits. It's also used by a fair amount of reasonably popular distros and is well supported and developed. See More

VersatileMamaQuilla's Experience

Stable, Unix and fast See More

Top Pro

UNIX-Like

Does one thing and does it well. See More

Top Pro

Very Efficient on System Resources

Uses multi-core and ram very efficiently. See More

Top Pro

Portable

It can be ported to other UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems. See More

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The Best 1 of 9 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for OpenRC

My Recommendation for OpenRC

No feature creep

No socket activation

Extremely simple

Not GPL

Fast

Not widely supported by distributions

Less dependency creep

A very balanced compromise

UNIX-Like

Very Efficient on System Resources

Portable

8 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for runit

My Recommendation for runit

Fast, parallel startup

Slow

Small and Unix-like

Not GPL

Easy to use

Development stalled

Runs on every POSIX system

Supported by several Linux plumbers

Init purity - does what an init system must do and nothing more

Fast and easy to use

Faster boot time than with systemd

My Recommendation for SysVinit

My Recommendation for SysVinit

Simple to understand

Duplicated implementation for every service

Very stable

Launches a bunch of processes to launch a process

Better boot time and overall performance

Fragile

No feature creep

Hard to write sysv-initscripts

Does not stop booting if something fails

Follows UNIX Philosophy

Can lead to slow boot

Initscripts is not portable

My Recommendation for The GNU Shepherd

My Recommendation for The GNU Shepherd

It's GNU

My Recommendation for s6

My Recommendation for s6

Runs on every POSIX system

Not GPL

You can use all its components independently

Heavy

Rock solid

The perfect init

My Recommendation for Upstart

My Recommendation for Upstart

Ubuntu abandoned it

Simple .conf file in /etc/init

It was just sysvinit or systemd in disguise

Event based startup was fantastic.

My Recommendation for systemd

My Recommendation for systemd

UNIX-like isn't the same as the UNIX philosophy

Login management out of the box

Makes dependent products difficult to port

Cgroups processes control

Too monolithic

Default for many popular distributions

Binary logging

Free and open source

Uses Confirmity as a Philosophy

GPL Licence

Runs only on Linux

Backed by Red Hat

It's all or nothing

PRO doesn't cripple your hardware

Connects to Google DNS servers by default

Full use of kernel features

Overkill as an init system, resulting to unsafe init system

Easy to manage

Need glibc