I was asked to develop a WordPress website with a member-only area, where users could download documents, each download tracked on the backend by name of the user and assigned a unique serial number.
The workaround I elaborated was using an e-commerce plug-in for digital purchases costing 0, combined with a second plug-in that generates, stores codes and assigns said codes to products from the e-commerce.
Is there any more sophisticated solution, less resource-demanding on the servers than the e-commerce route? I am considering free and paid solutions alike.
I am asking here since I am a one-man team