View source for Systemd vs sysvinit

=== What are the advantages/disadvantages of using systemd versus sysvinit? ===

In brief:

systemd:
- Fast boot time, mainly achieved due to starting services in parallell. This can also be achieved with SystemV init, but has to be done manually, while it is a product of dependency handling on systemd.
- Automatic dependency handling.
- Monitoring of started services with the ability to restart crashed services.
- Modules written in compiled languages, probably hard to debug.
- Tries to replace several system services, from the actual init over hardware recognition and session management to the logging service, and many more. Not the Unix way.
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd
- http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd

SystemV:
- Boot time depends on the admins optimizations.
- Due to its static dependency handling relies on a knowledgeable admin. Decide for yourself if you count that as advantage or not.
- Needs often some hacks to monitor services, services can easily escape the monitoring.
- Written as Shell scripts, so easy to debug and alter if necessary.
- Minimal approach, doesn't try to be the one super-service running the system.
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SysVinit_%28Italiano%29