>>It seems that a lot of criticism is due systemd doing more than a classic init process does, but some of it seem unjustified since you it is not an "all or nothing" package.

I hate this argument because, in practice, it is an "all-or-nothing" package from a user standpoint. Packages have a terrible habit of setting dependencies on one or two of the "modules," which wind up bringing the whole thing along with them. Sure, you can "disable" it after the fact, but then you're left with a system that will break in fun and exciting ways when something a package you requested wants isn't available.

If you don't want systemd, your only option at this point is also-ran distros.

systemd is extremely modular if you’re the one compiling it (i.e. you’re a distro-builder) but not as an end-user since it’s used as the plumbing for your distro. And since distros aren’t usually in the business of telling users not to use features they ship everything because someone might want it.

The fact that systemd bundles a lot of functionality (which is different from being a monolith) means it has a disadvantage in the terrible metric of "CVE counts".

Now if only the systemd-hating crowd would take a look at how many CVEs affected their DHCP client, nscd, nss and other resolvers, various PAM modules, syslog/klogd, ad-hoc init scripts writing insecurely to /tmp, ntpd, etc.