I used a trial version of houdini once and the procedural workflow is amazing and I loved it. But I can't justify the cost and at the time the limitations of the community edition were prohibitive even for a hobbyist.
I'm not sure when you used it, but Houdini Indie[1] looks pretty reasonable- $200/year and you don't have to upgrade until you're doing $100k/year in revenue.
It was a long time ago. Like more than 10 years. The indie version is indeed much more reasonably priced but I don't do enough to justify 200/year. Blender hits my sweet spot :-)
[1] https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blo...