I have been playing around with bitcoind and it seems fairly straight forward but it lacks a functionality that I would like to have.
I would like to have the functionality of managing cold wallets through a command line interface which I could control via an API. So basically, what I am looking for is an overview of the different command line implementations for running a full bitcoin node. Preferably one that can handle cold wallets. I am interested in integrating this with PHP scripts, Python scripts, and perhaps also C++.
why not manage the private keys instead?
launch with a new fresh wallet, import the keys you need, do what you need, remove the wallet.
repeat as needed.