As to the split pants, there are some parents who do Elimination Communication (aka EC) which eliminates the need for diapers much sooner. I'm considering trying it part time just for the heck of it, but it is really "out there" for most folks. LOL
With my second, we did cloth. Look on kijiji and there's often someone who bought everything then realized 'hey it's a lot of work' and then sold the whole package for cheap. We got a few deals that way, and I'm not a great sewer but it's not hard to make prefolds - a few layers of old towel between two sections of flannel, add some fleece patches and you have snappi friendly diapers. Ask anyone who has older kids, and they likely have a big stack of flannel blankets, everyone has an old towel stash too. The fleece came from a baby blanket with a stain, since I only needed a few inches per diaper it was fine.
Fleece also works for covers too, and that's not hard to sew so we had a few fleece covers (like training pants), as well as some wool ones. Most of my fabric came from the thrift store since wool sweaters aren't rare. The whole stash was pretty cute anyway! I also found some wool at the thrift store and knitted some covers.
And as 'out there' as it sounds, I started to realize that after my dd nursed in the morning for the first time, she'd have a blowout. Meaning change the sheets, it was a messy one! So, when she finished, I'd get up right away and go to the bathroom and beat her to it, have her on the counter and changed, then even faster and she hadn't pooped yet, so whatever, held her over the sink and in the course of a week, she was using the sink or an ikea potty for a lot of it. Yes, more work on my part but saved our butts when daddy forgot to pack spare diapers and we went out to grandma's for dinner. Every 15 minutes took her potty and she was fine, six months old and dry pants for the evening, can't complain.
Would I do that full time? I do have a life, so nope. But it was handy and saved a lot of poopy diapers to have her poop on cue. Many countries do that because diapers aren't an option.