FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Illumos, etc. Chances are, you don't even need to tie yourself to the Linux kernel. Lots of OSes out there that don't inflict their users with systemd.
syslog_ng_enable="YES"
syslogd_enable="NO"
and that was it. Unlike systemd's way of doing it, the default syslog facility isn't started at all, doesn't run, period. Pretty much all the other low level services -- crond, dhcpd, ntpd, etc -- are the same way. This is one of the many failings as to how systemd operates. One should have reasonable defaults, but at the same time, if the defaults don't work, it should be easy to change them.As for the rest, it's very much the same as with the BSD's, they all support their own versions of low level components and only them, and these can be changed by the user with compatible tools of their choice.
This in stark contrast to certain devs over at Fedora and Gnome that hold that choice is bad. Just observe a certain site ebassi maintains...