64 engineers on Hacker News describe using systemd first-hand: 26 endorse it, 24 regret it, 4 are mixed.
“widespread systemd-related breakage of an old LTS”
regret · production · hedora · 2026-11-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been using systemd-nspawn recently through NixOS containers. The combination feels quite powerful”
endorse · personal · ectoloph · 2026-10-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“systemd complicates this further with logind seat management etc.”
regret · production · seiferteric · 2026-08-19 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I don't have to think about webapp.container as a Docker container I can think of it as just webapp.service”
endorse · production · stryan · 2026-05-05 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've recently started to lean on systemd more as my 'local game server process manager' process.”
endorse · personal · sovietmudkipz · 2025-12-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“create bespoke systemd services for my random tools and automation stuff... how easy it is and how rock solid they are once setup.”
endorse · personal · ewoodrich · 2025-12-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Using systemd makes large scale Linux systems administration much easier.”
mixed · production · SEJeff · 2025-07-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Since uwsgi runs as a systemd unit, we also have all of systemd's hardening and sandboxing capabilities at our disposal.”
endorse · production · gvalkov · 2025-07-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I do like the more cohesive and consistent approach a lot.”
endorse · personal · lloeki · 2024-12-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“at $DAYJOB, we run into mysterious systemd failures and misbehaviors at least once a year (usually for things that should be super straightforward).”
regret · production · simoncion · 2024-11-04 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I recently found that systemd-networkd isn't generating "up" events for bonded interfaces set up by cloud init”
regret · production · eep_social · 2024-09-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“It's in a terrible way, too... We moved to running everything systemd as root, it's easier”
mixed · production · sevagh · 2024-01-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have literally never had a problem that was related to systemd. So all the anti-systemd rhetoric just doesn't seem to have much merit to me.”
endorse · personal · 6 yr · yoyohello13 · 2023-12-19 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I say this having dealt with systemd in production since the early days and IMO there's no reason for continuing to hate on it.”
endorse · production · ktm5j · 2023-12-14 · source ↗ · wrong label?“There is very little cases that aren't handled by very simple systemd units”
endorse · production · ilyt · 2023-02-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“systemd has mostly solved all of those problems for us. Some of the things that systemd improved”
endorse · production · placatedmayhem · 2022-12-07 · source ↗ · wrong label?“SystemD and k8s catalyzed my decision. ... And SystemD is not the linux I remember falling in love with.”
regret · personal · waynesonfire · 2022-11-07 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Fedora with Systemd since a few years now. Nothing that broke was Systemd's fault in any way.”
endorse · personal · zodiakzz · 2021-12-24 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I think it is cause for regret that there isn't an install option and a commandline tool to "just do it".”
regret · personal · denton-scratch · 2021-10-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“But did systemd fix that? No. It's just that now I have logs in journalctl AND nginx”
regret · personal · knorker · 2021-06-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Integration with display managers (i.e. screen locking) and systemd's power management is flaky.”
regret · personal · pwdisswordfish4 · 2020-12-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“when we was pretty much forced to switch to systemd”
regret · personal · ramtatatam · 2020-11-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“systemd still gets in my way regularly while the sh-based init systems tend to Just Work”
regret · production · simias · 2020-05-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I also have been bitten in production many times by systemd bugs, which due to the more... integrated... nature of systemd”
regret · production · cthalupa · 2019-12-29 · source ↗ · wrong label?“systemd provides an incredible, robust and easy way of solving that, I had to write just a few 10-line long unit files for in-house software”
endorse · production · ernst_klim · 2019-12-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“The general bloat of linux distros (due to gnome/systemd and others) really doesn't suit our use case”
regret · production · hazeii · 2019-12-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“running systemd in production over 4 years on CentOS 7... it's a nightmare of a system to look after.”
regret · production · 4 yr · m0xte · 2019-12-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Systemd is such an awesome improvement over everything that came before it. It benefits me on a daily basis.”
endorse · production · xiaomai · 2019-12-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've run systemd in production on thousands of servers (with no audio card) at multiple jobs.”
endorse · production · geofft · 2019-11-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“so you can probably guess my opinion on systemd ;)”
regret · personal · wibble10 · 2019-11-08 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I love systemd. I use it extensively in production. The constraints handling (ex: service depends on database which depends on network) is great.”
endorse · production · 1996 · 2019-11-08 · source ↗ · wrong label?“since we switched to systemd, a lot of work is simply no longer necessary and the reliability due to new features where increased”
endorse · production · Mave83 · 2019-09-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Systemd is the sole reason... Every time I come across a new 'strange' issue in some server distro these days it's almost always systemd related”
regret · production · phil21 · 2018-12-30 · source ↗ · wrong label?“an intelligen usage of `systemd-nspawn` has largely fixed that”
endorse · personal · qalmakka · 2018-12-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“It all worked because, instead of putting entries into /etc/fstab, systemd lets you create mount units”
endorse · personal · CaliforniaKarl · 2018-09-19 · source ↗ · wrong label?“after a couple of updates I had an unbootable system were systemd wasn't able to run logind”
regret · personal · pecg · 2017-12-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I don't like systemd, but it works pretty well nowadays in my experience and we use it for servers at work.”
mixed · production · jchw · 2017-12-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“the default and general distribution settings for systemd parameters appear to be generally set for desktop users”
regret · production · hpcjoe · 2017-12-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Off by default in Debian. I specifically turn it on, since it kills any rogue user processes”
endorse · production · lima · 2017-12-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“we use systemd. Extensively. ... My experiences with systemd are pretty much perpendicular to what some people claim.”
endorse · production · turbinerneiter · 2017-12-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Personally my experience with it has been great - the occasional screw-ups were nothing compared to the time I gained not having to worry about prehistoric initscripts”
endorse · personal · gaius · 2017-07-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“the systemd integration of rkt is pretty nifty.”
endorse · personal · rckrd · 2016-12-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I encountered this problem with SSH failing to start on Ubuntu 16.04 server. systemd was launching SSH before the binding address had been assigned”
regret · production · dingaling · 2016-07-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I now know about, like, more than a dozen systemd bugs across five versions, because I have to support targets that use five different versions.”
regret · production · notalaser · 2016-06-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“our experience with systemd has been amazing so far for managing our sockets, PHP pools and webservers.”
endorse · production · Ambroos · 2016-02-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Concerning systemd as an init system, it's been extremely reliable and simple to use and manage.”
endorse · production · nathwill · 2015-05-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have run into this annoyance myself (I've been using systemd for almost three years).”
mixed · personal · 3 yr · chimeracoder · 2014-12-21 · source ↗ · wrong label?“$SYSTEMD_LESS is quite possibly one of the most aggressively stupid ways to force a bad UX on someone.”
regret · personal · zaphar · 2014-12-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using it in my Linux distro for at least a year. It works fine-- quicker startup”
endorse · personal · 1 yr · reality_czech · 2014-11-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Systemd is a cancer, it will end up killing Linux if this goes on unchecked.”
regret · personal · jacquesm · 2014-11-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“the unnecessary problems that PulseAudio and systemd have thrown up over the years”
regret · personal · laumars · 2014-10-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Am I the only one who's disgusted with this bloated, convoluted, dbus-dependent pile of crap?”
regret · personal · ultramancool · 2014-09-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I run systemd in prod, on many machines, and am way confused as to why anyone thinks this is true.”
endorse · production · namecast · 2014-08-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“My experience varies, depending on the sh*t they decide to push (like Gnome 3 or systemd).”
regret · personal · rogerthis · 2013-12-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“add a systemd-tmpfiles rule that ages /tmp + scratch every 6h.”
neutral · production · senoff · 2026-09-08 · source ↗ · wrong label?“here is one of our service files for systemd to manage a Node.js backend instance”
neutral · production · e1g · 2022-09-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“systemctl to stop and start services remotely”
neutral · production · cloudyporpoise · 2022-07-24 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I also start it with systemd on Linux.”
neutral · personal · jeena · 2018-12-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“The issue we have ran into is due to the fact we are running a traditional distro instead of NixOS... or you want to register systemd units.”
neutral · production · blogle · 2018-11-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We deploy using Erlang "releases" using systemd for process supervision.”
neutral · production · jake_morrison · 2018-05-21 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We run our own services under runit which is started by systemd (because that's what the distro ships with).”
neutral · production · petre · 2017-06-14 · source ↗ · wrong label?“we had a few of those in Arch Linux when we moved to systemd.”
neutral · production · scrollaway · 2016-10-01 · source ↗ · wrong label?“we switched to using rkt, supervised by upstart (and now systemd).”
neutral · production · mtanski · 2016-08-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“then use CoreOS + systemd-nspawn to run it across every unprovisioned machine.”
neutral · production · russell_h · 2015-04-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?