Most bounds on the size of codes hold for any code, whether linear or not. Notably, the Griesmer bound holds only in the linear case and so optimal linear codes are not necessarily optimal codes. In this paper we identify code parameters $(q,d,k)$, namely field size, minimum distance and dimension, for which the Griesmer bound holds also in the (systematic) nonlinear case. Moreover, we show that the Griesmer bound does not necessarily hold for a systematic code by explicit construction of a family of optimal systematic binary codes. On the other hand, we are able to provide some versions of the Griesmer bound holding for all systematic codes.