Hey man, I'll try and help you out. Like yourself when I first started growing I wanted to use LED's but was on a budget. There is a lot of negativity towards the "cheap" LED's and most of it is warranted because there are a lot of shitty ones out there but if you do your research you can definitely get a good performing LED for a reasonable price.
The first LED I bought was one of the 300w Vipar units you mention, I'm on my third grow with it now and I'm quite happy with it. Here's a link to some pics of my first grow with it which yielded 87g from 1 plant.
https://www.autoflower.org/f10/delicious-seeds-northern-light-blue-pics-28027.html
After my first grow I purchased a second LED which is a Cidly Apollo, Cidly is the manufacture of the current Grow Northern LED's so you can get it customized to be the same spectrum as GN and get it direct from the manufacture for like half the price. Here's a link to the details of my custom Apollo.
https://www.autoflower.org/f138/new-cidly-apollo-4-led-custom-28452.html
Let me know if you have any more questions.
:Sharing One: