Most of the C++ world has standardized on CMake. I work on large C++ projects with 1-2 dozen third party C and C++ library dependencies, and they're all built

Most of the C++ world has standardized on CMake. I work on large C++ projects with 1-2 dozen third party C and C++ library dependencies, and they're all built from source (git submodules) as part of one CMake build. It's not easy but it is fairly simple.