diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 2021a23501..22372a8296 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,5 +1,21 @@
 systemd System and Service Manager
 
+CHANGES WITH 238 in spe:
+
+        * The MemoryAccounting= unit property now defaults to on. After
+          discussions with the upstream control group maintainers we learnt
+          that the negative impact of cgroup memory accounting on current
+          kernels is finally relatively minimal, so that it should be safe to
+          enable this by default without affecting system performance. Besides
+          memory accounting only task accounting is turned on by default, all
+          other forms of resource accounting (CPU, IO, IP) remain off for now,
+          because it's not clear yet that their impact is small enough to move
+          from opt-in to opt-out. We recommend downstreams to leave memory
+          accounting on by default if kernel 4.14 or higher is are primarily
+          used. On very resource constrained systems or when support for old
+          kernels is a necessity, -Dmemory-accounting-default=false can be used
+          to revert this change.
+
 CHANGES WITH 237:
 
         * Some keyboards come with a zoom see-saw or rocker which until now got
diff --git a/man/custom-entities.ent.in b/man/custom-entities.ent.in
index 9ea92384aa..a1dbf7133f 100644
--- a/man/custom-entities.ent.in
+++ b/man/custom-entities.ent.in
@@ -6,3 +6,4 @@
 <!ENTITY systemenvgeneratordir @SYSTEM_ENV_GENERATOR_PATH@>
 <!ENTITY userenvgeneratordir @USER_ENV_GENERATOR_PATH@>
 <!ENTITY CERTIFICATE_ROOT @CERTIFICATE_ROOT@>
+<!ENTITY MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT @MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT_ON_OFF@>
diff --git a/man/systemd-system.conf.xml b/man/systemd-system.conf.xml
index 08f6c91901..fca9690092 100644
--- a/man/systemd-system.conf.xml
+++ b/man/systemd-system.conf.xml
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 <?xml version='1.0'?> <!--*- Mode: nxml; nxml-child-indent: 2; indent-tabs-mode: nil -*-->
 <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
-  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
+  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
+<!ENTITY % entities SYSTEM "custom-entities.ent" >
+%entities;
+]>
 
 <!--
   SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1+
@@ -338,8 +341,9 @@
         <varname>CPUAccounting=</varname>, <varname>BlockIOAccounting=</varname>, <varname>MemoryAccounting=</varname>,
         <varname>TasksAccounting=</varname> and <varname>IPAccounting=</varname>. See
         <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.resource-control</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
-        for details on the per-unit settings. <varname>DefaultTasksAccounting=</varname> defaults to on, the other
-        four settings to off.</para></listitem>
+        for details on the per-unit settings. <varname>DefaultTasksAccounting=</varname> defaults to on,
+        <varname>DefaultMemoryAccounting=</varname> to &MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT;,
+        the other three settings to off.</para></listitem>
       </varlistentry>
 
       <varlistentry>
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index e497924cb8..b4d5964bf1 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -172,6 +172,8 @@ if pamconfdir == ''
         pamconfdir = join_paths(sysconfdir, 'pam.d')
 endif
 
+memory_accounting_default = get_option('memory-accounting-default')
+
 conf.set_quoted('PKGSYSCONFDIR',                              pkgsysconfdir)
 conf.set_quoted('SYSTEM_CONFIG_UNIT_PATH',                    join_paths(pkgsysconfdir, 'system'))
 conf.set_quoted('SYSTEM_DATA_UNIT_PATH',                      systemunitdir)
@@ -217,6 +219,8 @@ conf.set_quoted('SYSTEMD_EXPORT_PATH',                        join_paths(rootlib
 conf.set_quoted('VENDOR_KEYRING_PATH',                        join_paths(rootlibexecdir, 'import-pubring.gpg'))
 conf.set_quoted('USER_KEYRING_PATH',                          join_paths(pkgsysconfdir, 'import-pubring.gpg'))
 conf.set_quoted('DOCUMENT_ROOT',                              join_paths(pkgdatadir, 'gatewayd'))
+conf.set('MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT',                         memory_accounting_default ? 'true' : 'false')
+conf.set_quoted('MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT_ON_OFF',           memory_accounting_default ? 'on' : 'off')
 
 conf.set_quoted('ABS_BUILD_DIR',                              meson.build_root())
 conf.set_quoted('ABS_SRC_DIR',                                meson.source_root())
@@ -257,6 +261,7 @@ substs.set('SYSTEM_SYSVINIT_PATH',                            sysvinit_path)
 substs.set('SYSTEM_SYSVRCND_PATH',                            sysvrcnd_path)
 substs.set('RC_LOCAL_SCRIPT_PATH_START',                      get_option('rc-local'))
 substs.set('RC_LOCAL_SCRIPT_PATH_STOP',                       get_option('halt-local'))
+substs.set('MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT',                       memory_accounting_default ? 'yes' : 'no')
 
 #####################################################################
 
diff --git a/meson_options.txt b/meson_options.txt
index 48ee3f52a4..dca9dfc16c 100644
--- a/meson_options.txt
+++ b/meson_options.txt
@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@ option('debug-tty', type : 'string', value : '/dev/tty9',
        description : 'specify the tty device for debug shell')
 option('debug', type : 'string',
        description : 'enable extra debugging (hashmap,mmap-cache)')
+option('memory-accounting-default', type : 'boolean',
+       description : 'enable MemoryAccounting= by default')
 
 option('utmp', type : 'boolean',
        description : 'support for utmp/wtmp log handling')
diff --git a/src/core/main.c b/src/core/main.c
index 56200a8fad..125c0f4ac6 100644
--- a/src/core/main.c
+++ b/src/core/main.c
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@ static bool arg_default_cpu_accounting = false;
 static bool arg_default_io_accounting = false;
 static bool arg_default_ip_accounting = false;
 static bool arg_default_blockio_accounting = false;
-static bool arg_default_memory_accounting = false;
+static bool arg_default_memory_accounting = MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT;
 static bool arg_default_tasks_accounting = true;
 static uint64_t arg_default_tasks_max = UINT64_MAX;
 static sd_id128_t arg_machine_id = {};
diff --git a/src/core/manager.c b/src/core/manager.c
index e4ef461ac7..9f8153f1e7 100644
--- a/src/core/manager.c
+++ b/src/core/manager.c
@@ -673,6 +673,7 @@ int manager_new(UnitFileScope scope, unsigned test_run_flags, Manager **_m) {
         m->unit_file_scope = scope;
         m->exit_code = _MANAGER_EXIT_CODE_INVALID;
         m->default_timer_accuracy_usec = USEC_PER_MINUTE;
+        m->default_memory_accounting = MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT;
         m->default_tasks_accounting = true;
         m->default_tasks_max = UINT64_MAX;
         m->default_timeout_start_usec = DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_USEC;
diff --git a/src/core/meson.build b/src/core/meson.build
index bc034082a5..a89a12232d 100644
--- a/src/core/meson.build
+++ b/src/core/meson.build
@@ -186,7 +186,8 @@ systemd_shutdown_sources = files('''
 
 in_files = [['macros.systemd',   rpmmacrosdir],
             ['triggers.systemd', ''],
-            ['systemd.pc',       pkgconfigdatadir]]
+            ['systemd.pc',       pkgconfigdatadir],
+            ['system.conf',      pkgsysconfdir]]
 
 foreach item : in_files
         file = item[0]
@@ -225,8 +226,7 @@ i18n.merge_file(
         install : install_polkit,
         install_dir : polkitpolicydir)
 
-install_data('system.conf',
-             'user.conf',
+install_data('user.conf',
              install_dir : pkgsysconfdir)
 
 meson.add_install_script('sh', '-c', mkdir_p.format(systemshutdowndir))
diff --git a/src/core/system.conf b/src/core/system.conf.in
similarity index 96%
rename from src/core/system.conf
rename to src/core/system.conf.in
index 6b86eac33d..08cbe529ba 100644
--- a/src/core/system.conf
+++ b/src/core/system.conf.in
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
 #DefaultIOAccounting=no
 #DefaultIPAccounting=no
 #DefaultBlockIOAccounting=no
-#DefaultMemoryAccounting=no
+#DefaultMemoryAccounting=@MEMORY_ACCOUNTING_DEFAULT@
 #DefaultTasksAccounting=yes
 #DefaultTasksMax=15%
 #DefaultLimitCPU=