If you are new to Linux I think it makes sense to use systemd. It’s the default for a reason. All major distros use it for a reason. It’s only a really small minority of very vocal people who are against it.

If Debian and Fedora and Ubuntu and All the enterprise linuxes use the same thing, I think that says something.

Despite claims to the contrary systemd is substantially faster and easier to use than its predecessor.

It’s simpler and easier to use. Take a look at these examples. Service files are so so much easier to use and are much more robust than hundred line bash scripts.

Systemd:

[Unit]
Description=OpenVPN tunnel for %i
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/%i.conf
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Sysvinit

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          openvpn
# Required-Start:    $network $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $network $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: OpenVPN service
# Description:       Start or stop OpenVPN tunnels.
### END INIT INFO

DAEMON=/usr/sbin/openvpn
CONFIG_DIR=/etc/openvpn
PID_DIR=/run/openvpn
DESC="OpenVPN service"
NAME=openvpn

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

start() {
    log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC"

    mkdir -p "$PID_DIR"

    for conf in "$CONFIG_DIR"/*.conf; do
        [ -e "$conf" ] || continue
        inst=$(basename "$conf" .conf)
        pidfile="$PID_DIR/$inst.pid"

        if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background \
            --pidfile "$pidfile" --make-pidfile \
            --exec "$DAEMON" -- --daemon ovpn-$inst --writepid "$pidfile" --config "$conf"; then
            log_progress_msg "$inst"
        else
            log_warning_msg "Failed to start $inst"
        fi
    done
    log_end_msg 0
}

stop() {
    log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC"
    for pid in "$PID_DIR"/*.pid; do
        [ -e "$pid" ] || continue
        inst=$(basename "$pid" .pid)
        if start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile "$pid"; then
            rm -f "$pid"
            log_progress_msg "$inst"
        else
            log_warning_msg "Failed to stop $inst"
        fi
    done
    log_end_msg 0
}

status() {
    for conf in "$CONFIG_DIR"/*.conf; do
        [ -e "$conf" ] || continue
        inst=$(basename "$conf" .conf)
        pidfile="$PID_DIR/$inst.pid"
        if [ -e "$pidfile" ] && kill -0 "$(cat "$pidfile" 2>/dev/null)" 2>/dev/null; then
            echo "$inst is running (pid $(cat "$pidfile"))"
        else
            echo "$inst is not running"
        fi
    done
}

case "$1" in
    start) start ;;
    stop) stop ;;
    restart) stop; start ;;
    status) status ;;
    *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}"; exit 1 ;;
esac

exit 0