I used it last year for quite a while. It was also my first distro decades ago.

I would use non systemd distributions for ideological reasons. There's a tendency to centralise that is worrying and dangerous. But other than that there's not much difference. Linux is Linux. You'll do fine. Also if you're used to writing unit files, an older init system will give you context and you'll understand what systemd came from (and why people rightfully hated it).