If you prefer coded tests, there is no good alternative to the de-facto standard of using Selenium and/or Webdriver. But as you said, this means that creating a test setup is a development project by itself. So for our team, screenshot-based web automation tools like Kantu (https://kantu.io - or Sikuli https://sikulix.com for the desktop) are the best alternative to Selenium, especially for non-standard and animation-heavy web-app/pages like the one you need to automate.

I find that screenshot-based test cases are very easy to read and maintain - even and especially for the non-coders on your team. New button? Just take a new screenshot. Everyone that can use Snagit understands that ;)